Paul Rudd, Kevin Feige & Ant-Man Cast Talk Heros, Creativity & One Almond at Burbank Press Conference

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a an Ant-Man press conference in Burbank. The event included Paul Rudd (“Scott Lang/Ant-Man”), Michael Douglas (“Hank Pym”) , Evangeline Lilly (“Hope Van Dyne”), Corey Stoll (“Darren Cross/Yellowjacket”), Michael Pena (“Luis Pena”), T.I. (“Dave”), David Dastmalchian (“Kurt”), Director Peyton Reed and Producer Kevin Feige. We did have a chance to preview the film Ant-Man after sending our correspondent to the press conference, and our review is here. The actors and filmmakers took turns talking about bringing this unique film to life.

All photos and video are from our Mousesteps correspondent.

Ant-Man was a very long time coming to the screen, but producer Feige (Marvel Studios President) had been waiting for the right moment. “Ant-Man in the comics is a founding member of the Avengers. It was always clear that we were going to assemble all the Avengers eventually”, he told the press. With this being the 12th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it did take a while to arrive at Ant-Man, but he feels the timing was right. “I like it when all our films are unique, and all are different and all can surprise people”. 

Here is the press conference for those who want to see part or all of it.

Director Peyton Reed was brought in to the film at the last minute, and said that “There’s a high bar with these Marvel movies”. Both Feige and Reed talked about bringing something unique to the screen. Reed continued, “One of the things I discovered working at Marvel was that they have a really creative hunger…they don’t want to repeat themselves.” And for those who haven’t seen the film, Ant-Man is anything but a repeat of previous Marvel films.

The press conference was often a little more subdued than others we send our correspondents to, but there were many moments of humor as well. Dastmalchian asked Rudd (to laughter) whether he “enjoyed being ripped”.  Rudd eating just one almond on ab-shooting day (which I’m not sure if it is true or not) came up a couple of times during the press conference, with Rudd saying, “I was very self conscious during that day of shooting”. He enjoyed being able to do shoulder rolls and “kind of flips”, and commented that the suit was not uncomfortable. On the other hand, Stoll was “working out like a fiend” for his roll as the villainous Yellowjacket to be able to look good in his suit, only to end up with a CGI suit. What constitutes working out hard? Rudd said – again to laughter – that he “didn’t eat anything for a year”. He noted that he took the Chris Pratt approach, eliminating anything fun for that year.

Michael Douglas knew nothing about Ant-Man and Hank Pym before he signed on for the role. Who encouraged him? His 14 year old son. “My 14 year old’s reaction was like an agent (to much laughter). He said, ‘You know dad, this could be a whole new audience for you’. So I took that to heart and here I am”.

Evangeline Lily likes to take on roles that matter. She said of playing Hope Van Dyne, “When I pick a role, one of the things I aspire to is that someone’s parent will come up to me and say ”my daughter idolizes that character. You’re her hero’. And that’s what we aim for”. She feels that Marvel aims for that too, which is why she chose the role.

Continuing on the hero theme, Rudd said that he took his son to a Disneyland preview for Ant-Man, and his son hadn’t really been sold up until that point. But now he thinks it is awesome to have Ant-Man as a dad.

The film surprised me in many ways. I mentioned in my review about having a bit of superhero fatigue, but Ant-Man was very different than other superhero films we’ve seen through the years. While there are obvious connections to the Avengers in the film, it doesn’t have much of the feel of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have come before it. There was a bit of an Iron Man vibe to begin with, but I wasn’t feeling it anymore by the time Thomas the Tank Engine rolled through the screen. Read our full review here.