{"id":5601,"date":"2009-09-30T17:57:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T16:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=5601"},"modified":"2009-10-01T13:02:18","modified_gmt":"2009-10-01T12:02:18","slug":"jk-simmons-talks-jennifers-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/jk-simmons-talks-jennifers-body\/","title":{"rendered":"JK Simmons talks Jennifer’s Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JKS\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The man who brought J Jonah Jameson alive on screens talks to SciFiNow about his new role in Jennifer\u2019s Body and working with some industry greats\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr Wroblewski in Jennifer\u2019s Body <\/em><\/strong>isn\u2019t your normal science teacher. How did you come to be playing a teacher with a robotic arm?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It sort of landed in my lap. I worked with [Jennifer\u2019s Body producer] Jason Reitman and [writer] Diablo Cody on Juno<\/em> and we sort of felt like a team, so they asked me to play Mr Wroblewski. And when I read the script that was the part I gravitated towards. For no particular reason, Diablo wrote that he has a gnarly, robotic arm and walked with a limp. And I ended up coming up with the whole back story that informed why Mr Wroblewski is the way he is, why he\u2019s such a dork.<\/p>\n

And the more I got into thinking about the part, the further I wanted to go with changing my look. So we not only did the limp, and the prosthetic arm, but we went with an outrageous Seventies hairpiece, and strange burn scars on my face and neck. I had a fun time doing it [laughs].<\/p>\n

In a film that\u2019s quite dark and violent, you\u2019re one of the few nice characters in it. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. From what I\u2019ve done on the Spider-Man<\/em> movies, and other things from time to time, I think being the comic relief is a very fun spot to fill. And since I play some scary bad guys and cops and authority figures in other jobs, it was a nice departure to play an oddball science teacher.<\/p>\n

Was part of the attraction of the role the opportunity to get back to Diablo Cody\u2019s dialogue? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, absolutely. The combination of her script, and Jason being on board as producer, were really the two things that got my interest. And then I met with Karyn Kusama, our director, and we had a nice meeting and hit it off. And as tends to be the case with me and film roles, it was one of those parts I could knock out pretty quickly. I worked a few days one week, and then a few days another week. And then I pretty much had it licked, which is honestly sort of a priority for me these days. I try to be away from home as little as possible. I like my kids to recognise me.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s quite a strong group of women behind the film \u2013 Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody behind the camera and Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried in the lead roles \u2013 which you don’t see too often on a horror film. Did that make for an interesting dynamic on set?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, well when I was there, [producer] Dan Dubiecki and Jason and I would sort of huddle around video village and try to inject a little testosterone into it [laughs]. But it was great being a part of a female-centric film like that. Diablo obviously has such a strong voice and despite the fact that we had a male director, Juno<\/em> was a female-centred film too. It\u2019s a great perspective to have just in life in general, and as a father of a daughter too!<\/p>\n

Continued\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jennifer’s Body<\/em><\/strong> is quite similar in tone to the Sam Raimi film that came out this year, Drag Me To Hell<\/em><\/strong>. Before that film you\u2019d been in his last five films. Were you disappointed not to make it six?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, yeah, that actually turned out to be a scheduling difficulty. Sam did want me to do that, and I very much wanted to, but by the time it came round to me it was too late to try and work the schedule out. Yeah, that was a disappointment. I was hoping to keep my record of Sam Raimi films, my string, intact. Knock wood, I\u2019ll start a new string with Spider-Man 4,<\/em> which we\u2019ll be shooting next winter.<\/p>\n

Do you enjoy that collaboration, working with people you know?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, absolutely. It\u2019s really nice to start a project with the comfort level already built in. And certainly that\u2019s the case with Sam, with Jason Reitman, and with Ethan and Joel Coen. Yeah, there\u2019s a real nice feeling of coming home, whether it\u2019s a bunch of sequels like the Spider-Man<\/em> films, or just another feature.<\/p>\n

J Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man<\/em><\/strong> films is such a memorable role for you now. Yet despite those films being so big, your scenes don\u2019t feel that scripted. Do you have much scope to play around and improvise? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, probably more than almost any feature work I\u2019ve done. We start out with the script, and Sam asks for a little input, or some basic ideas, and then when the writers are done with their job Sam and I get in a room, sometimes with one or more of his brothers, and Tobey [Maguire, who plays Peter Parker] and Liz Banks [Spider-Man\u2019s Betty Brant], and whoever\u2019s scene it is, and we really have the opportunity to play and improvise. The finished product in those films tends to be maybe 60 per cent what was on paper and 40 per cent what we come up with. So those are some of the most fun projects to work on, where you have that freedom.<\/p>\n

Are there things out there still that you\u2019d like to do, in terms of working with filmmakers or doing a particular genre? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really have a list of filmmakers or actors that I\u2019m particularly dying to work with. If it\u2019s Diablo Cody or Sam Raimi or somebody like that, I\u2019ll pretty much sign up to whatever it is they\u2019re doing. But I\u2019ve got a lot of great people I have worked with, I\u2019ve been very lucky, and I\u2019m just hoping that continues. Also, I\u2019m like the least film buff person of almost anyone I know. My parents in Montana are actually more in tune with what\u2019s going on in show business than I am. I just basically sit around and hope that the phone rings and try to live a relatively normal life in the insanity that is Southern California.<\/p>\n

Jennifer’s Body is released nationwide 6 November from 20th Century Fox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The man who brought J Jonah Jameson alive on screens talks to SciFiNow about his new role in Jennifer\u2019s Body and working with some industry greats\u2026 Mr Wroblewski in Jennifer\u2019s Body isn\u2019t your normal science teacher. How did you come to be playing a teacher with a robotic arm? It sort of landed in my … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[7,140],"tags":[412,1073],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/JKS1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}