Aaron Taylor-Johnson calls 'Kraven the Hunter' apex predator ...
1 of 5 | Aaron Taylor-Johnson arrives on the red carpet at the premiere of "Kraven The Hunter" at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on Tuesday in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
NEW YORK, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Kick-Ass and Bullet Train alum Aaron Taylor-Johnson says he wanted to play the titular supervillain in Kraven the Hunter because he was unlike any other character he had seen in a movie.
Directed by J.C. Chandor and opening in theaters Friday, the Marvel Comics adaptation co-stars Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott and Russell Crowe.
The action-packed film follows Sergei/Kraven, a muscular guy whose strained relationship with his gangster father -- coupled with an accidental infusion of lion's blood -- drives him to become the greatest hunter in the world.
"He's got such an iconic image. I really wanted to inhabit that physicality," Taylor-Johnson, 34, recently told the crowd at New York Comic Con about Kraven.
"It's always interesting playing a villain, and I think it comes with depth and complexity. He's real. He's not an alien. He's not a visual-effects monster. He's a man who's made a choice to be a hunter, a killer."
The actor said he also stands by his previous description of the character as a "conservationist."
"Like all great hunters, Kraven respects his prey," Taylor-Johnson said. "He respects that natural order. He's an apex predator, the top of the food chain.
"Kraven's a hunter, not a poacher, and like every hunter knows, sometimes you've got to cull the herd to preserve order. Of course, once you start applying that to human beings, that's when it becomes a pretty dark story. I've not seen that in comic-book movie."
Chandor, 51, is known for helming the movies Margin Call, A Most Violent Year and Triple Frontier.
He said he was inspired to become a filmmaker after seeing Richard Donner's Superman in the theaters when he was about 5 or 6 years old.
Chandor turned down offers to make his own comic-book adaptations until this came along, giving him the chance to tell the story of characters who never have appeared on screen before.
"Then, I did a deep dive back into all of the books. When you get in there, it's a pretty intense arc, and that just drew me to it," Chandor said.
"The last thing you do is you get a script, and it's like this gift, and the script here was this journey that Kraven, that Sergei goes on, and it is like an old gangster film, basically. There's this classic kind of journey, but, obviously with a little bit of a Marvel spin on it."
The movie is R-rated because the character and his deeds are so brutal.
"When the studio gave us the opportunity to see if we wanted to do this as an R, we were like, 'Yes!'" Chandor said with a laugh
"It was an amazing opportunity. It sort of opened up some really intense, kind of grind-house stuff on one side, and then some also really intense character stuff that, frankly, is in the core of the comic books."
Chandor said Taylor-Johnson was chosen to star in the movie because he was "born to play Kraven," meaning he had great dramatic acting skills, but also could handle the physical challenges of the role.
"He's a man who can do some pretty crazy things, but he can't fly," Chandor said.
"So, [we had] to find an actor who has the ability to stand toe-to-toe with a lot of these other actors in this movie -- we've got an amazing cast -- and hold up the chops from a performance standpoint, but also be able to physically move in the way that we asked him to be, which is this sort of animalistic, dancing, violent, amazing mashup and yet have it all feel grounded in a way that you still feel like it was happening where we are."
Star Aaron Taylor-Johnson arrives on the red carpet at the premiere of "Kraven the Hunter" in New York City on December 10, 2024. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
