STACK #162 April 2018

CINEMA

FEATURE

“When we were prepping in Sydney, John showed up with a line shaved into the side of his head and a moustache and a little goatee, and I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’” DeKnight recalls. “He said, ‘I think this is right for my character,’ and I wasn’t so sure. But as I got used to it, I couldn’t imagine him looking any other way. It also really reflects that spirit of Idris Elba.” In addition to the geek credentials of his aforementioned TV work, DeKnight, like del Toro, loves giant monster movies and has brought the Kaiju home to Tokyo for the sequel’s spectacular showdown. “Being a kid of the seventies I grew up on Ultraman , Space Giants and all the Godzilla movies. Destroy All Monsters blew my mind as a kid,” he laughs. “Growing up, I had seen Tokyo destroyed so many times by guys in monster suits and I really wanted to set the finale in Tokyo, more than anything for the little kid in me.” With the Kaiju attacking Japan, does this mean the Pacific Rim universe is poised to intersect with Legendary Entertainment’s other franchise, the MonsterVerse, featuring Godzilla and King Kong? “That’s above my pay grade,” says DeKnight, “but I’ll go on record as saying I would love that. I’ve designed the idea for the third

SON OF A LEGEND

Scott Eastwood says the best bit of advice he's received from father Clint about working in Hollywood is to "shut up and listen." The rising star has obviously been all ears, with a rapidly growing resume that includes Suicide Squad , The Fate of the Furious and now Pacific Rim Uprising . Eastwood didn't hesitate when given the opportunity to join John Boyega at the controls of Jaeger ‘Gipsy Avenger’ in the Pacific Rim sequel, describing his character, Lambert, as a Jaeger pilot instructor who doesn’t suffer fools. “He’s also a best friend to Jake and they had a lot of history there that needed to be worked out. I liked that they were best buds," he tells STACK . As a fan of the first film, Eastwood was impressed by what director Steven S. DeKnight brought to the follow-up. “I thought there were a lot of great story arcs in the script. [Steven] had a really interesting take on the film and I loved that it was a continuation ten years into the future. Fast forwarding a decade or so let him change things and put his own spin on it.”

part of the Pacific Rim trilogy to be able to set that up, if they so desire. “I go back to when I was a kid and saw Destroy All Monsters – it’s the thought of having Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and the Jaegers and the Kaiju! It also makes complete sense in a way that all of those ‘monsters’ are versions of Kaiju and kind of fold into that world.

“I have an idea how to do it if they want to, and if they don’t, I will still gladly pay for a ticket to see any giant monster movie they do, whatever universe it’s in.”

Pacific Rim:

Uprising is in cinemas now.

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