Music, Style & Culture

Interview: Real Steel Director Shawn Levy

The director tells us how he persuaded Lost star Evangeline Lilly to return to acting.

Disney bring us an action-packed family drama in the form of Real Steel on 14th October.

Based on the 1956 short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson, it's set in a near future where robots have replaced humans in the sport of boxing. Hugh Jackman stars as a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring. Now a small-time promoter, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son (Dakota Goyo) to build and train a championship contender.

Along with other writers, we got a few words with director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Date Night) when he was at Empire Big Screen this summer. We grilled him about the return of Lost star Evangeline Lilly as Jackman's love interest.

Is there more to Real Steel than boxing robots?
It's about a guy who can only get fights in underworld fight clubs who eventually gets a shot at a league-sanctioned championship bout. What matters more is the emotional journey of complete disparate, unconnected father and son to a unified one.

Did you work with professional boxers on the movie?
Not only did I do a lot of research about real boxing, but we had Sugar Ray Leonard do the boxing consulting on the movie. [see video below] We literally went to the mountain top for input into the choreography, working with Hugh on how he would move and relate to the action. It was such a thrill, because at lunch, Hugh and I would just sit around and have the champ tell us stories about the Hearns and Hagler fights. As a fan of the sport it was pretty awesome.

How did Hugh Jackman get involved?
Hugh and I got involved at the same time. I got a call from Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider, asking me if I would consider directing. I had been looking to do a non-comedy, and heard that Hugh was potentially interested, but he didn't want to be a prop in a robot movie. My whole premise to Steven was, to do a robot movie in 2011 and think that that's inherently fresh is either moronic or delusional. There's been so many, but what we haven't seen is a movie set against this sport. It's more of a sports movie than anything. It's more a descendant of Rocky, or Victory or Chariots of Fire - the great, rousing, underdog sports movie. Those movies are not about what's happening in the arena, but about the redemption of the character. That gave Hugh something to plug on to. When I pitched that to him, he signed on in the room. The other advantage to having Hugh is that his character is a full-on asshole for half the movie. What you find with other actors, is that when an actor brings inherently, calibrates how you direct the performance. Hugh brings such crazy, global good-will and likeability, he was able to play a guy who was more callous and hard-edged, without risk of losing the audience's affection. That's what you get when you hire Hugh - you can have him completely play against type and the audience will root for him.



Evangeline Lilly was vocal about scaling down her acting career following Lost. How did you get her to come back?
I know there are many movies coming out this December alone that I know for a fact she turned down the female leads in. She came in, and I said, I heard you were pretty much quitting acting, and I know you turned down this and this. She said, 'I read the script, it made me cry, and I want to be in things that make me feel like this.' That's the difference between people who have seen trailers for Real Steel and those who have seen the movie, is that it's a poignant, full-on father/son movie. That's what Evangeline saw in the script, and she said yes, and brought so much. I was also a huge Lost fan, so by day six I was calling her Freckles without embarrassment!

Your background is in comedy, but is this somewhere you wanted to end up?
It's interesting, as my filmography is mostly in comedy, but my background in terms of my aspirations and interests have never quite resided there. If I were to name my top ten movies, there wouldn't be a comedy in there. I've been really lucky to have success in comedy, and it comes naturally to me, but I've been biding my time. I consider that call from Spielberg to be my reward for the comedies I've made.

Can you tell us about your use of real, modelled robots as well as CGI?
That's an aspect that's been picked up a lot on. In this day and age, everything can be done digitally, so most things are done digitally. I have to credit Steven, who in our very first meeting said 'I know this is an old-fashioned notion, but on Jurassic Park, the building of real animatronic creatures gave the movie and the acting a realism you don't get when people are faking opposite a tennis ball on a stick.' He said it ain't gonna be cheap, but we should consider building robots for real. Because the movie is this threesome of father, son and machine, every scene when the robot isn't fighting is a real thing. The performance is more magical because it's real.

Watch Sugar Ray Leonard in action on set below!