Gangster Squad Michael Peña Interview

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

hi Michael how are you que pasa como estas muy bien ET tube hey a little Spanish for you well tell us about Gangster Squad I loved it oh good yeah well um initially my buddy ruben fleischer told me about it and he says you know I'd like for you to be in it I was like how cool and so I gave it a read and I was like wow this is a really good script and then he told me who was in it and I was like oh you gotta be kidding me it's a no-brainer and but it's about this you know the squad that's like a bunch of off-duty police officers and they call themselves a gangster squad and they go up against Mickey Cohen you know who's a this mafia guy mob guy in 1940s and he wants to take over Los Angeles and it's based on a true story and they basically go and fight like you know an army and they come out on top which is pretty interesting because it's you know it's based on a true story or whatnot but you know this is I think it's got a good script it's got a really good director and you know these guys are pretty good actors as well now how did you like getting into costumes and the old guns how how was that for you at first I wasn't totally stoked about it because you know your pants were like you know coaster chest and I'm like they're you know I'm not really used to it like I think they call them mom jeans now and uh you know high-waisted high-waisted you know I think it looks good on women but I'm like I'm dudes I'm like what really am like you cover it well you can cover up a lot yeah you can see your pants I could just see the jacket looked great yeah I appreciate but the tie was like this yeah I was like that's not even really a tie anymore but if you saw like we kept on cheating yeah we I mean was you know we I tried I tried how did you like with the new guns from when you were an end to watch with you know shooting different guns from today back from those and 40s yeah yeah I much appreciate the ones that we have now because it's a softer trigger the recoil isn't as much and then with the other ones like you when pam pam pam so it's harder to stay on target and so but now they teach you you know with you know to hold it with two and then your thumbs it's a lot of stuff but i think we have better guns now the scene that when you were all trying out the shooting like you were trying to see who can shoot the can Robert Patrick's character could do it and he was bouncing it how was who was the best shot of course I'm gonna say me you know but I had five months of training and then before that I you know I would just go to the shooting range just to shoot anyway and and you know I still go to the shooting range now and shoot shotguns yeah so I i don't know maybe some of them have our better shots you know i'd like to see that now with working with ruben fleischer again from 30 minutes or less not much different and you know what that's why I liked I liked the idea of this movie because it could have been really dark and sometimes I don't know sometimes with this kind of movie if you go really dark and get really boring in a way where you're like it's you know what to expect and stuff but he kept it kind of light you know and you know a lot of the guys are joking around and Mike but that's it's oddly enough you know and I learned it and the watch these cops they really joke around a lot and I used it a lot in end of watch you know me and Jake were joking around all the time you know offset and while we were shooting and I thought that he was you know it was great he's great with the camera or not and I was like except we were definitely going for the jokes I'm 30 minutes or less did you do any research before filming this for like the real gangsters that this is you know based on it did i'm like i always do like a little bit of research just to give me like a taste of what it really was like but i usually go back to the script and i'll read the script maybe 10 times or whatever or as many times is on me too because I think everybody needs to be on board with the you know with the with the same script a lot of times people go study study study and then they come back and it's like they're doing a different movie and but this one is definitely like what does I thought the script was awesome anyway offset was anyone's oak stirs going on anything going on with that ms on with since she is one of the main characters I didn't shoot any scenes with her but there was definitely some funny moments I'm like one of the weirdest moments was like I remember we were shooting a scene down in the alley and like everybody's parked we're all dressed and the you know we got the lights and the camera and then all of a sudden some beaver some no some dude dressed in a beaver suit oh not Justin Bieber but like a beaver beaver don't be like yeah starts walking down and literally like just you know moseying along his day yeah doing whatever and and he just I think he may be works in like Hollywood Boulevard or something you're not doing it dooney this or whatever and he just walks by looks at the camera as it looks it up and he's like well that with a beaver hat on and then we had to wait for like 10 minutes because there is weird thing that's a probably ever happened to me on a film set yeah but to be walking slow they know great and he kept at least he kept in character the whole time well I really enjoyed it I think you're gonna do great I want to see it again thank you very much appreciate