Christoph Waltz and Peter Sarsgaard were both presented with the Cinema Vanguard Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Friday night for their noteworthy contributions to films in 2009. Waltz was given the award for his remarkable performance in Inglourious Bastards and Sarsgaard was honored for An Education.
SuperHeroHype attended the event and talked to the actors about their upcoming roles in comic book adaptations The Green Hornet and Green Lantern.
Waltz was the first to arrive on the press line. In The Green Hornet, starring Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz and Jay Chou, Waltz plays Chudnofsky, a Los Angeles crime boss who tries to unite the city’s various gangs in order to form a supermafia.
Asked what his character has against the Green Hornet, Waltz said, “Well, because he’s a competitor. There’s a misunderstanding between the two of them and they have to sort it out through the course of the movie.”
We thought that was all he was going to say about the character, but then he dropped a big spoiler that you might not want to read until after you’ve seen the movie. We’ve marked the following quote as such:
[SPOILER BEGINS] “They do sort it out through the course of the movie, but unfortunately it happens fatally for one of them and it wasn’t Seth.” [SPOILER ENDS]
Sarsgaard walked the red carpet next and we wanted to see if he would talk more about playing villain Dr. Hector Hammond in the Martin Campbell-directed Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. Hammond is a pathologist who becomes infused with psychic powers when he discovers a meteor.
He confirmed again that shooting will start in March, but when asked if the character will look similar to how he does in the comics, Sarsgaard pretended to zip his mouth shut and smiled, saying, “I don’t know,” adding that the movie is “going to be fantastic.”
We also asked him if he was looking forward to working again with Tim Robbins, who plays Senator Hammond, the disapproving father of Hector.
“He gave me my first job – ‘Dead Man Walking,'” Sarsgaard said. “I think he looks at me like I’m this young guy that was in this movie. I think you’re always that to someone. I look at him like he was the guy that gave me my first job and I have immense respect for him. He does not feel like an equal to me. He feels like a God. He’s a lot taller than I am.”
The Green Hornet is scheduled to hit theaters first on December 22, while Green Lantern is targeting a June 17, 2011 release.
The SBIFF ends on the 14th, but will be back in Santa Barbara next year. For more info, check out SBIFF.org.
Source: Heather Newgen
