Voices From Krypton

LAURA VANDERVOORT INTERVIEW: "SMALLVILLE," "V" & "INTO THE BLUE 2"

by Edward Gross

Laura Vandervoort is, of course, best known these days for having play Kara/Supergirl on Supergirl on Smallville. But there’s a lot more to come from her. This month look for her starring turn in the Warner Premier DVD film Into the Blue 2, in which she plays Dani, who must work with her husband Sabastian (Chris Carmack) and several others to try and find the lost treasure of Columbus, but instead is involved with a race to find an errant nuclear device before a group of criminals do.
   More recently, Laura spent two days on the set of the new “V”, playing the character of Lisa who uses her sexuality to manipulate teenaged humans into siding with her people against their own kind. In the pilot she has her sights set on Tyler Evans and his best friend, Brandon. In the following exclusive interview, Laura discusses both projects.

VISITORS AMONG US: When you’re doing a movie that’s a DVD sequel to a theatrical film, is there a stigma attached to it?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: Oh, yeah. Any sequel has to try to live up to the original. I think we did a good job of not following the storyline exactly. We have our own adventure, an action-related story. I think we did a good job. Of course there’s going to be a stigma of it being a bathing suit movie with some young people and that there won’t be much to it, but I think we found a good storyline. We’ve got some great actors in it, so hopefully people will like it.

VISITORS AMONG US: I thought the plot element of Into the Blue 2 regarding somebody searching for an errant nuke was pretty cool.

LAURA VANDERVOORT: They added that aspect into it to get the guys to watch, and also the girls. My character gets to be the strong one in the movie, which is a nice change from a lot of other movies out there. The girl gets to save the day and she’s just as strong as her partner, Sebastian.

VISITORS AMONG US: Being a strong female should be nothing to you.

LAURA VANDERVOORT: [laughs] I’m trying to make a living off of that.

VISITORS AMONG US: Is that what drew you into the film?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: I didn’t know much about the original Into the Blue except that there are a lot of bikinis and I wasn’t sure if that was for me. But there was really more than that, because my character, Dani, in the script is actually a lot tougher. What drew me to it, and I think what I’m drawn to in a lot of roles, is the chance to play the ass-kicking girl.  I just find damsels in distress to be a little dull. In this one I got to do a lot of action, I was scuba-trained, I was doing a lot of stunts and actually fractured my ankle while we were shooting the movie. But it’s worth it. I love all of that stuff more than anything, to just really put your heart and soul into it.

VISITORS AMONG US: When you’re playing a kick-ass character, how much of that is a reflection of you as a person and how much of that is wish fulfillment?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: I think my boyfriend would tell you that I’m not tough. I cry and all of that, but I think getting these roles is an opportunity to express that side of me. I was in karate for so much of my life that I have that need to kick butt to get the adrenaline out. I think that’s a great place to do it, because I get to do it as another person. I can go nuts and people aren’t going to think I’m strange, and I can be really butch. As much as it might not be believable to some people because I’m some blond girl, I love it. Most of the stuff I’ve done since Into the Blue have been cops, aliens and crazy stuff I love to play.

VISITORS AMONG US: Speaking of aliens, how did you come to be involved with “V”?

LAURA VANDERVOORT: I got a phone call. They were shooting in Vancouver and I’ve played an alien similar to the one in “V” before and they wanted to know if I wanted to be a part of it. I jumped and said, “Yeah!” It was just two days of shooting for me, because it’s an introduction of my character in the pilot. If it goes to series, hopefully the character will evolve. It was great. I’ve never seen the original, but I’ve heard amazing things about it. There are a lot of good rumors on set that this is going to be big. They have a good cast, and I play the enticing young teenage alien trying to enroll the teen humans on the ship with her looks.

VISITORS AMONG US: I know you only played her for two days, but in your mind who is your character of Lisa?

PART 2: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW -- KEVIN J. ANDERSON ON SUPERMAN/BATMAN "FIRST ENCOUNTER"

In this exclusive interview with Voices From Krypton, Kevin J. Anderson continues his preview of the followup to The Last Days of Krypton, First Encounter, which chronicles the first meeting between Superman and Batman. You'll find the audio file after the excerpt below.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: These days it seems that Superman is a little more comfortable with being a part of humanity, but in the book it feels like there’s still a pretty large gap as far as he’s concerned.

KEVIN J. ANDERSON:  That’s a lot of the internal struggle of Clark/Kal-El in that he is trying to relate and at one point he throws up his hands to his mom and says, “I don’t understand these people. I don’t understand their problems. “ Martha says, “Do you think we understand them, Clark?” She tries to make him see that the things he doesn’t understand about humanity is a perfectly normal part of being human. It’s very poignant, because he’s Superman and when he’s sitting there in her kitchen eating apple pie and drinking milk, he says, “What right do I have pretending to be Clark Kent and living a life of my own? People need saving 24 hours a day. If I’m having coffee with Lois Lane for that hour, how many people die in car accidents or plane crashes? Shouldn’t I be Superman 24/7? And Martha Kent is insisting he deserves his own life and has to be among human to understand humans. This isn’t just a book of chapter after chapter of Superman stopping bank robberies, saving crashing airplanes and beating up bad guys. I think that’s the difference with the novel; you can really get into the reality of everything. On a comic book page, you can’t have pages of the character’s face as he ruminates. In a novel you can at least do it a little more in depth.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: How do you view the relationship between Superman and Batman?

KEVIN J. ANDERSON: The structure of the novel, and I don’t know if I should say this, is that it’s almost like a classic romance. First they get together, they hate each other, they’re at odds, then they gain an understanding and they come together.  There’s a lot of friction because Superman does not agree with Batman’s tactics, and Bruce is having a lot of problems with Luthorcorp. He also figures out that the only other company that can create these things – the bullet proof suit, the ability to fly -- is Luthorcorp, so Superman has to be working for Luthor. Who else could have made someone like him? So there’s an immediate at odds and the situation worsens. They also look at their duty in a completely opposite way. Batman kind of wants to stop the little criminals – the muggers in the alleys, the rapists, the thugs – whereas Superman wants to promote world peace and stop wars and keep the governments from killing each other. So it’s a big picture or little picture thing. Obviously something happens where they have to work together to do both.

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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: KEVIN J. ANDERSON ON THE SUPERMAN/BATMAN NOVEL "FIRST ENCOUNTER," PART 1

After the success of last year’s The Last Days of Krypton, it’s not surprising that author Kevin J. Anderson has been given the chance to dip back into the DC well and what he’s emerged with his First Encounter, the 2009 novel that will chronicle the first time that Superman and Batman meet.
   “These are big books, not paperbacks, so you want to do something significant,” says Anderson. “So I thought the best way to go would be the first meeting between Superman and Batman. But I was still wrestling with it a lot, because I personally love the superheroes in the past. I did a JSA series set in the ‘40s and I just think those heroes belong in the ‘40s and ‘50s; that’s just my preference.”
   Then he was struck with the idea that if they were to meet each other in the 1950s, it would place the books setting during the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union.
   “Then all of these things came up,” he says. “That was the beginning of the UFO craze and the time of all of those great – or not so great, depending on your point of view – sci-fi movies, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Them and Invaders From Mars. Everybody was seeing UFOs. This would be set eight or 10 years after the Roswell crash. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun for Perry White to have Clark Kent look into the UFO crazy and find out if there were any of these little green men wandering around on earth?’ Of course, Clark wants to find out if he’s the only alien on earth, if he’s truly the Last Son of Krypton or if there are others. So he’s passionate about that. I’ve also got Lex Luthor, who’s pretty much promoting the Cold War. He’s trying to increase international tensions with his counterpart, a KGB general in the Soviet Union, because Lex is making so much money selling weapons. There’s also the element of Bruce Wayne’s board of directors being blackmailed by Luthorcorp for sensitive information.
   “The other thing I thought was the most fun,” Anderson continues, “is that Bruce Wayne is just fascinated by this Superman guy. How does he fly? How do bullets bounce off of his chest? Bruce is down in the cave working like crazy to figure out how to make a suit so that bullets can bounce off his chest and whether or not he can rig something so he can fly. Bruce Wayne is a rational guy, he doesn’t believe Superman can be some alien from space flying around. I just had so much fun tracing these ideas and seeing how they can all come together.”

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   To hear the rest of the interview, please click below..

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BRENDAN FRASER ON J.J. ABRAMS' "SUPERMAN"

While speaking to actor Brendan Fraser about Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Voices From Krypton editor Edward Gross had the opportunity to speak to actor Brendan Fraser about both films. Additionally, the conversation veered to the J.J. Abrams screenplay for "Superman," for which Fraser was offered the title role. What follows are his reflections of that experience.

When you're finished listening, become a member of the Voices From Krypton Community (it's free) where you'll have your own page from which you can blog, ad photos music and video, interact with other members and, coming soon, check out exclusive interviews. Just click  HERE to join.

 

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THOUGHTS OF "ACTION"

The court ruling this week that the estate of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel is entitled to the domestic copyright of Superman as he appears in Action Comics #1 (and a portion of profits from domestic Superman merchandise from 1999 on), seems like a significant victory for the Siegel family, though what it all really means is something that will likely unfold in the weeks and months to come.
   What is interesting is the fact that based on a variety of forums, the response from fans has been pretty much split down the middle. While some are applauding the court ruling, feeling that the Jerry Siegel has posthumously gotten what he and co-creator Joe Shuster deeply deserved, others feel that the ruling is ridiculous; that Siegel and Shuster signed away their rights and neither they nor their families are entitled to anything.
   I just want to make a quick point here. Yes, while it's true that Siegel and Shuster signed a work for hire agreement and LEGALLY transferred their rights to DC, once the Superman character became a phenomenon (which pretty much happened from the moment it was introduced to the public), with DC and, subsequently, Warner Brothers making millions turned billions of dollars on the character, there should have been a MORAL obligation on the company's part to provide financial restitution to Siegel and Shuster.
   There are some who claim that DC/Warners HAS done what's right, beginning in the 1970s when they restored "created by" credit to the duo and started paying $20,000 (eventually $30,000) a year to each of them. While commendable, the important thing to not allow the passage of time to cloud is the fact that the ONLY reason Siegel and Shuster got anything was because Superman: The Movie was being released in 1978. Neal Adams had picked up the Siegel and Shuster cause and was embarassing Warners and DC by going public with the financial plight of Superman's creators, who were fairly destitute. This agreement was "shut up and go away" money, there's no doubt about that.
   To argue that Siegel and Shuster don't deserve anything financially is -- and there's just no way to escape this -- wrong. It's like TV stars from the 1950s and '60s who, for the most part, had terrible residual deals that entitled them to payments on up to, I believe, five reruns or so. Well if you're the cast of Star Trek, for example, and your show is run five to seven nights a week on television stations across the country and around the world for the past near-30 years (since it began in syndication), the studio (in this case Paramount) is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, while if you're William Shatner you're doing nude scenes with Angie Dickinson in Big Bad Mama or if you're Gene Roddenberry, you're doing college lecture tours and conventions just to pull in a few extra bucks. The same is true for the cast and crew of virtually every other TV show made during that era.
   The bottom line is that at this point nothing can change the lives that Siegel and Shuster were forced to live, but on some level this legal ruling (which will no doubt be appealed by Warner Bros.) has got to be seen as a moral victory for all of the creators of the world who have sat by helplessly while others have reaped the benefits of their imagination. -- Edward Gross

SUPERMAN RETURNS...AGAIN

IESB.net is reporting on the annual Showest convention and quoting Warner Bros.' as stating that Superman: Man of Steel is definitely happening, and that Bryan Singer will remain as director (which would seem to assure that Brandon Routh will be reprising his dual role of Superman and Clark Kent). The newest bit of information to come out of the report is that departing writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris will be replaced by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Orci and Kurtzman, of course, are the writers behind Mission: Impossible 3, Transformers and JJ Abrams' forthcoming Star Trek prequel. No word, of course, on what the new film will be about, though one can be relatively confident that Supes will do more than lift some rocks. Darkseid anyone? We're just saying....

EXCLUSIVE: ALAN BURNETT ON THE FINAL EPISODE OF "THE BATMAN"

Throughout this past season, The Batman has had the Dark Knight teaming up with different members of the Justice League. Tomorrow, in what will mark the final episode of The Batman, the entire team is being brought together for one last adventure. Where the DC Tooniverse goes from here, of course, is anyone's guess, although the rumors are flying that there will be a Brave & The Bold series with Batman teaming up with different DC heroes in every episode. In the following exclusive interview with supervising producer Alan Burnett, just as he's done all season with VFK, he previews the new episode of The Batman.

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EXCLUSIVE: PART 2 — DUANE CAPIZZI LOOKS BACK A THE WRITING OF "SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY"

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EXCLUSIVE: DUANE CAPIZZI LOOKS BACK AT "SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY," PART 1 OF 4

While fans await the February arrival of Justice League: New Frontier, they've found great enjoyment in the Superman: Doomsday DVD. Now that film's writer, Duane Capizzi, is providing Voices From Krypton with an exclusive in depth look back at the making of the film. This is the first in a four-part interview.

WANNA CHAT WITH LEX LUTHOR?

A MESSAGE FROM AL GOUGH:

So, Miles and I were sitting around the other day (which is what writers do when they can't write and their picketing shift is over) wondering what we can do to kick this Pencils2Moguls campaign up a notch. Don't get me wrong, we are stoked by the response so far, but we felt there must be something we can do to really light a fire under it going into the holidays.
   Then the answer hit us -- the greatest criminal mind of our time -- Lex Luthor.
   We will give the gift of Lex.
   Well, not really since he is, after all, a fictional character, but we do have Michael Rosenbaum, one of the best young actors of our time (in our humble opinion). We thought, why not offer a challenge to some of these other shows who have devoted fanbases (that's right Battlestar and Buffy, I'm talking to you!) and see whose fans can really deliver the goods (in this case, pencils).
   So here is the skinny:
   For every box of environmentally friendly pencils you buy at Unitedhollywood.com, your name will be entered into an e-raffle. We will then pick a winner at random and they will receive a phone call from Michael Rosenbaum thanking them for their support of both the cause and the show.
   That is right, Lex Luthor will call you directly! Make sure you list SMALLVILLE as the show you are supporting when you click on the icon.
   Please spread the word far and wide... and thank you all for your continued support and good wishes. We are all in this together.

Best,
Al Gough