Karl Urban Discusses Judge Dredd

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

hi this is penny McLean with flick direct I'm going to be interviewing Karl Urban of his new film Dredd 3d I wanted to ask you growing up as a teenager I know you're a big comic book fan and how big was Judge Dredd comic books to you well I didn't read many comics but Dredd was one that I did read it was a comic that you could buy down at the local shop and I just loved I love the character you know the ultimate badass lawman and I also loved the world of Judge Dredd there's a futuristic dystopian world yeah I found it really engaging for you to come to this role to actually play him after reading the comic books and what drew you well I guess what drew me to the role was the script you know Alex Garland wrote such a wonderful character driven narrative was action-packed and it was pretty obvious to me that a heart of the story was this wonderful relationship between essentially a senior cop and his rookie and and I really enjoyed the evolution of that relationship and and and also you know being a long-term fan I was pleased to see that you know what Alex had done was authentic to to the original comic so I immediately actively went about becoming involved talking about your relationship with Anderson with Olivia thoroughly how was it from the beginning cuz see when you first meet her you just think that she shouldn't even be a working and being trying to be a judge and how it progresses take us through that from the beginning to the end yeah well that's you know that as I said you know draids relationship with Cassandra Anderson is at the heart of the story and in the beginning of the movie Dredd doesn't think much of her at all you know she's already failed this assessment once and his opinion that she shouldn't even be there and and through the course of the movie that opinion his opinion of her changes and for a guy like Dredd that represents quite a huge crack in his worldview because for him everything's black and white and his responsibility as a judge is to make a judgement and you know sometimes those judgments can result in life-or-death outcomes so for him to have made a judgement even a small one about this individual about Anderson and then sort of feel like he was wrong it's a huge crack for him and suddenly there's like there's black and white world suddenly there's this whole area of grey and I think that's really interesting I think the most funniest line was when we were talking about you forgot to put your helmet on right it says it's gonna interrupt her psychic abilities I'm talking about your uniform and the helmet and your bike amazing props I think that the lawmaker and your gun and the bike how was it driving that bike driving the bike was fun it was a lot of fun I think one of the most fun days that I had was in Cape Town driving the law master through the streets of Cape Town as well as moments where you can't believe that they're letting you do it and it was it really heavy when you were driving I thought the machine guns on it yeah it was you know it took a couple of weeks of of practice to to get really up to speed on it and to be able to ride it at speed as well it looked so relaxed doing that look like a normal cop and how much training of reparation did you have to go through to get to become Dredd well it was quite the training was quite extensive I did about 14 weeks in the gym just to sort of get into the shape that I felt the character needed to be and and then we did like a two-week military boot camp which I did in full costume so then that was like two and a half weeks before the camera started rolling which was tricky because we were shooting in Cape Town in the middle of a of a South African summer so it was a was an interesting experience it's a little hot and when you put the helmet on for the first time then I think it's awesome that you kept it on throughout the film you kept it very authentic from the comic how did it feel to once you put it on where you'd read at that point yeah it felt really good I mean you know all of those elements help you to become the character and you know certainly I couldn't conceive of doing this film any other way you know if you know Dredd he is this enigmatic futuristic lawman and so to do a movie where a Dredd movie where you would show my face it just wouldn't have had an authentic ring about it were you able to keep any of the props we were able to keep the helmet or the gun I did actually I have got the helmet I've got the helmet so it's a yeah it's a good little momentum working the two leading ladies that are so powerful and are so strong and demanding how was that for you it was fantastic I mean I think that Olivia therby and lee dahee are extraordinary talented actors and it's very rare in a film that you have two strong female archetypes banal fun we've got these two badass women that who are so empowered and it's there are real the real sort of strength and core of this film well thank you I wish you all the best thanks very much pleasure sentence is death you