Sony’s Hall H panel shifts gears from the futuristic expanse of Len Wiseman’s Total Recall to the time travel thrills of Rian Johnson’s Looper, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis playing versions of the same person locked in a battle that could mean one of them has to die.
Writer/director Rian Johnson will be joining Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt to discuss the film. And from my perspective, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel just gave up the stage to Emily Blunt. I don’t care how long the line is to get into Hall H. It’s worth it. Here we go!
5:21 Gordon-Levitt gets the loudest applause I’ve heard in Hall H today. It carries over to the first time he talks into the mic to tell us about his charater. Dude is a favorite with the Hall H crowd.
5:22 Blunt, who is gorgeous, says she can't say much about her character, who is "a bad ass," because her family gets pulled in to the action when Joe "acts like a pussy" by letting Bruce WIllis run. She also jokes that they filmed in the heartland, where people chastised her for being British. C'mon, America! Where's your decency to this lovely lady? I'll defend Blunt more later. We've got Looper footage!
5:28 And we have a hashtag! #closeyourloop
5:29 The footage was insanely cool. A lot of it, you've seen in trailers. But Johnson fills in a few more gaps with longer scenes of dialogue between JGL and Jeff Daniels or JGL and WIllis. The highlight was a tense face-to-face between Willis and JGL in a diner, shortly after Gordon-Levitt allows Willis to escape his assassination. Their chemistry is going to be the spine of Looper. More on this in a little. Johnson is talking about how they got Willis and JGL to look alike on screen, and Johnson says Joe is doing "a young Bruce Willis" in his performance. As if I didn't want to see Looper enough...
5:30 Emily Blunt nags JGL to do his bad British accent. He rips into a little of "Step in Time" from Mary Poppins. Johnson jokes that they've found their next project.
5:31 JGL calls Bruce Willis a "sweetheart" and assures us that we would love him. Too bad he's too busy filming a Die Hard sequel and couldn't attend.
5:32 Johnson mentions Brick and a number of people applaud. JGL looks legitimately moved by that.
5:34 Johnson ensures us that time travel sets up the Looper premise, but then gets out of the way so his characters can deal with the repercussions of the effect.
5:35 The twins who seem to live in Hall H kick off audience questions, asking JGL what the best part of working with Emily Blunt is. He says she's funny ... then insults pretty women everywhere by saying they usually aren't funny. He tries to back-pedal, but Blunt is shocked.
5:36 By the way: Blunt. [/swoon]
5:37 JGL does a great Willis impersonation as he explains how the action star talks soft, which gives him presence in the room. "He doesn't have to raise his voice. He doesn't have to let people know that he's there." Blunt says she sent her dad a picture from the set of Willis, covered in blood from an action scene, holding a parasol over Emily so she didn't burn in the Midwestern sun. "That's him," she says. "He's a doll!"
5:38 They can't stop talking about Bruce Willis. Will he walk out on stage?!
5:39 He doesn't.
5:40 JGL champions storytelling over making a movie to earn gobs of cash. People applaud. Then he name drops The Dark Knight Rises. I can't believe it took him this long!
5:41 A girl in cute Moonrise Kingdom cosplay steps to the mic, then blows a kiss at Emily Blunt. I may have found my soul mate.
5:42 The hardest thing Emily Blunt had to do for this film? Learn to chop wood, convincingly. She had logs delivered to her house in L.A. so she could practice. That's dedication.
5:44 "I feel that this is the best movie that I have ever been a part of," Blunt says. I don't think she's selling. I think she believes it.
5:45 JGL also says that this was a hard movie to complete, particularly channeling "Bruce F*cking Willis." Seriously, couldn't Bruce film a video from the damn Die Hard set? His presence is everywhere on this panel.
5:46 A guy asks a good but very esoteric question about acting. I hope we don't end on this.
5:47 We don't! A guy asks about the tone of Brick, and all of his films in general. Johnson seems flattered by the praise. He better get used to receiving a compliment.
And that's it for Looper. The Sony panel has one more big one on the radar, and that's Elysium. Coming up next!
