If you've been waiting to find out as much as you can about Thor: The Dark World, you're in the right place. When I visited the set of the Marvel sequel a year ago while the production was filming outside London, I participated in a group interview with producer Craig Kyle and he revealed a lot of information. Here's a tease of how he described beginning of the film:
"The Bifrost was destroyed at the end of the first Thor. Odin had to break a lot of rules and laws and take a lot of himself to send Thor to Earth in The Avengers, and during that time when they couldnât jump from Asgard to the other worlds, chaos reigned, and so we come into a time of real strife in the nine realms. Weâve got Marauders who are moving from world to world that are pillaging and attacking helpless because you know the cops canât come."
Sounds great, doesn't it?  Kyle also talked about the film's design, locations, why they wanted Alan Taylor to direct, the significance of the Dark Elves, the new cast, whether the success of The Avengers raised the Thor sequel budget, and so much more. Hit the jump to either read or listen to the interview.
While most on set interviews take place at a table or by the person's chair, the interview with Craig Kyle was done while walking around the sets. This is why it might read a little bit weird.
If you'd like to listen to the audio from this interview click here. Otherwise the full transcript is below. Thor: The Dark World opens November 8th.
Note: This interview is loaded with specifics about the movie. If you're trying to stay spoiler free, I'd advise skipping this until you've seen the movie.Â
CRAIG KYLE: Kevin sends his personal hellos, he was sorry he missed this roundtable. He knows you all so very well. Obviously you got a quick little sneak peek. Iâm gonna take you through the bulk of whatâs on the wall here, so you actually know, what you couldnât spot already, and I do have a little something extra for you that I got permission from Kevin to share with you guys, so I think youâll enjoy that, and I want to say thanks for coming out. Youâre like the closest extension of us out there, so weâre always grateful to have you out here.Â
Hope you guys had a good time, hope you had a good time with Chris [Hemsworth] and Tom [Hiddleston]. Those guys are amazing, theyâre the best, and their work in this movie is the best theyâve done yet. I know Chris was kind of fucked up yesterday, but he looks great. By far the best looking Thor weâve had. He just looks amazing. Loki weâve really kind of had for a while now, so he just, since The Avengers, he got his long hair, he looks tremendous. Just speaking specifically about, you know, the vision for this second story in Thor and third part in Avengers, which we do take into account, this is setting high expectations at least for the Thor story, a darker era. You know, I canât say the Empire Strikes Back of our storyline, but if it was, wouldnât that be amazing?Â
Just to kind of catch you guys up, this doesn't fall right after the first Thor. It does fall right after Avengers. Itâs been about a year and a half, two years since the first movie. Promises were made, Iâll came back for you, Jane Foster [Natalie Portman]. He did come back, not for here, thatâll be awkward when they hook up again, Iâm guessing. Whatâs wonderful about these films is so many of you guys know the books. We read them for the ongoing stories and then we love these big disaster moments that draw all these lives together.Â
Again, for so many people out there that never read comics, they wouldnât understand how good these stories can get, and that now we have a lot of draft off of after Avengers. Our guys, who have amazing arcs coming in their own lives, had to step out, deal with this big threat, and now come back. Well, now all those threats continue to send ripple effects throughout our whole cinematic universe. We have Iron Man, Tony Stark, whoâs torn up from being in the effects of that combat. You have Thor, who had to take the prisoner Loki back to Asgard to be dealt with, and this time heâs going to be locked up in a cell where heâs not gonna have control. You have Erik Selvig [Stellan Skarsgard], who had a god in his head, messing around for an entire movie, which probably isnât good for your psyche.Â
You know, lots of these threats continue to just spread outwards in ways that only deepen the stories weâre about to tell in these individual sagas. Itâs truly our job to bring the books to life in the way that made them so popular when we were all kids, and itâs a big duty, but weâre doing our best.Â
Anyways, we brought Alan Taylor [director] on, and heâs done such amazing work on Mad Men and Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and Rome. We had spent a lot of time in the palace of the royal family and kind of come during a time of celebration. The Bifrost was destroyed at the end of the first Thor. Odin [Anthony Hopkins] had to break a lot of rules and laws and take a lot of himself to send Thor to Earth in The Avengers, and during that time when they couldnât jump from Asgard to the other worlds, chaos reigned, and so we come into a time of real strife in the nine realms. Weâve got Marauders who are moving from world to world that are pillaging and attacking helpless because you know the cops canât come, and we just catch into, we put it to a story in a way finding out where the hell is everybody? I think we do it in a way thatâs really great.Â
Iâm going to take you through some of the visuals that are up on the wall and quickly kind of show some of the story elements weâve got going. Then I can answer some questions for you guys at the end. Probably not most of them, but some. I will also tell you, this is no bullshit, Chris came out of the tent yesterday and said that those guys are great, theyâre fun. They know their shit. Heâs like, theyâre tricky, but they know their shit. Itâs a view shared by all of us that, yes you are tricky, but you know your stuff. You guys love it.
Question:Â Are we going to see the Bifrost get fixed in this film?
KYLE: Youâre not. Thatâs the thing we talked about, and again, Iâm gonna catch up with that artwork, so you guys are actually gonna see. Iâm gonna start with the last frame, which is embarrassing. No weâre not, because thatâs shoe leather we didnât really want to get into, but youâll see that itâs not the Bifrost that it was. Itâs a brand new structure, it had to be rebuilt. Iâll kind of go under, and catch up to that in one second.Â
We start off with a very small way on Earth, and you get to meet these kids who are running around this abandoned warehouse, theyâre having some fun. Some of their toys start to take off and act in really weird ways, and they get into this warehouse, this massive cement truck, and itâs floating about three inches off the ground, and one of themâs brave enough to touch the bumper and it suddenly starts to rotate like a massive planet.
Obviously things on Earth are not as they should be and this is the beginning of an element thatâs spreading across the universe. Weâre probably right now the singularity. Itâs basically like a flex in the universe. If you could think that thereâs fault lines across the cosmos, they expand and contract about every five thousand years, and theyâre felt on every world. This is the first sign of it on Earth, and what is initially very fun and playful and cool ultimately will build across many planets and be very disastrous.Â
We transition from that and reveal Dark Elf ships. They havenât been seen in five thousand years. As far as anyone knows, Odin was a child the last time they were dealt with and they needed to be wiped, so when they return itâs not good news
What are they called again?
KYLE: The ship is called The Ark, and then this is the Dark Elves, and at the beginning of the film, once they awaken, Malekith [Christopher Eccleston] who we all know is the in the film ultimately, sends out spies to go find out whatâs up with the universe. Theyâve been gone for a long time and they need to know whatâs going on. Thatâs The Ark, thatâs their singular mothership and the smaller crafts you see here are the Harrows.Â
Do you have to name these things because you have to sell the toys?
KYLE: No. Weâll see if they make the toys. Iâm not a toy guy. I mean, I collect toys, but Iâm not peddling the toys, Iâm here to peddle the movie. You guys want to know what a Dark Elf looks like? If you guys saw the plaque, thatâs what they look like. Now I think the rendering that we actually built looks better than this, but this is kind of the Dark Elf storm trooper. It kind of represents the creatures that they once were. Adewale [Akinnuoye-Agbaje] as Algrim. Heâs the second lieutenant of our big bad Malekith, and thatâs Chris Eccleston. I donât know if you guys are going to get a chance to see him today, but heâs going to be out and about.
Are his eyes different colors?
KYLE: Yes, on the damage side they are. Sorry itâs a little blown out. Iâll adjust it a bit. This is Vanaheim, one of the first worlds we come into the film after we see the kids and the Dark Elves, and this is a very peaceful world that has been run over by the Marauders I was talking about. This is one of the place where we get to meet our heroes for the first time in the film. If any of you guys have internet connections, youâve seen a lot of this footage online, shot in the woods in Norwood, but this stuff we got is even better, but this is the veneer. Although their a warrior race, theyâre not quite as advanced as the Asgardians, and theyâre not prepared to handle the onslaught of the villains from the various worlds outside the nine realms. So what it is is a ragtag band of space pirates basically, that have just come together to steal as much as they can. You know, and as we expand further into the stars, and we reach you know, stories like Guardians of the Galaxy, it shows you that itâs a rich marvel universe out there. Weâre all getting to just scratch the surface of what can be out there.Â
Hereâs a big spoiler. We have a stone man from Saturn in this film that does face off with Thor. Youâre the only ones to see the picture and understand what that is. For those of you that donât, these are the first guys that Thor ever fought in the comics, so itâs pretty epic that we got to bring them out. Weâve actually got a full sized bust of this guy thatâs pretty sick. Are you guys going to the armory later today? You should ask, we have this club. You should ask to hold it.
Then Asgard. Like I said, the first time around, we got to see Asgard, and all of its beauty. The Ascension Ceremony and all that, everyone had their costumes all buffed and polished, but we didnât really get to see the other shades of it where the normal folks live, the darker underbelly. This time weâre going to get out there and explore as much of Asgard as we really can. Itâs really important for us, as we move further out in the stars, we move deeper into the worlds that weâre visiting and the characters themselves, just so that people like our girlfriends and wives and buddies who donât read comics and scared itâs gonna be, you know, nameless films that I wonât name that we know exist, so we just have to make sure weâre always bringing great story to each character and depth and detail.Â
So basically the prisons of Asgard are different than the prisons of Earth. This is the dark side of Asgard that if you were to see it, you donât usually get to see anything after. A fitting home for a character like Loki. There he is, and then across the cell you see these horned characters and Marauders and various demons, and his cell does have a little bed and a couple of books that Frigga [Rene Russo] brought down there, just so he can be as comfortable as possible, but as far as Odinâs concerned, youâre staying. Tom Hiddleston is once again doing a tremendous performance for us. Seeing new shades of his character that we havenât seen in the past two films.Â
Oh, we saw him yesterday.
KYLE:Â Oh, you did?
Yeah. We also saw a prison break.
KYLE: You did? Oh great. Well there you go. It looks better than that. Rene Russo, beautiful as always. She actually returns to us next week, as Frigga. T his is a set youâre going to walk into today. Itâs going to be dressed in two different ways. We have Friggaâs chambers, and then we get to the Hall of Science, which Iâm going to show you in a minute. Again, this filmâs got a lot of location work, so weâre in Norwood, where we shot our initial fight. Weâre in Iceland. Weâre all over London later on on shoot, and weâre getting a lot of elements here to build the shores of Asgard we saw. Usually from the air, but never close to, and from here youâll find the Asgardian training grounds where all they're training for the battles that are currently happening all across the cosmos. So we get a chance to actually have Thor and his father reconnect after he comes home from a successful journey.
That was the set where we saw the guys?
KYLE: This is like, because theyâve been going through a few troops right because theyâre trying to reign in the universe, theyâre coming up in the ranks. Odinâs in full warrior mode, so we donât see him in all of his more royal settings, heâs more of a general and watches over his troops, training his men. Most of them are largely similar to the previous film. Iâll tell you if this one is inaccurate, if youâve seen the shots of Zach [Levi], they got a lot coming out, his face, he has blonde hair, he has a blonde goatee. It looks fantastic, but that costume is accurate. He came on board, heâs just unreal as Fandral, just doing a brilliant job for us.
Again, just showing you more shades of Asgard that we hope to show, just deepening the audienceâs experience. Whatâs really important this time around is, you know, this a world built by Thorâs great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, and we wonât be able to show enough of the architecture. Just like the observatory, weâre not gonna cover, hey, howâs the building doing? Weâre just gonna show people, and youâll see different kinds of materials, and age damage, building up to the golden palace that we already see, and the golden towers that look beyond it. So all it is, again, is just showing the age and the time, and again, this is another great example where itâs very rough, but weâre inside an older structure, and this, as you can see, is Odinâs palace, just shows that Odinâs always kind of watching over you, no matter how far out you are. This architectureâs not correct, but, it gives you a sense of, so this would have been a structure, perhaps Thor had built, and since then this structure has come up beyond it. Just showing again the history and making Asgard more real at a visual glance.
We spend a lot of time at the pub. We actually get to meet some of the folks from the books, Volstaggâs family, Fandralâs maidens. We get to see who the hell these guys fight for when theyâre out there every day, and get to spend some time in the pub. So it looks much better than this. Itâs a really, really wonderful environment -- rich, full and lively, and music, and mead. It just feels exactly like you want it. Warriors come home and tell exaggerated stories, especially Volstagg and the mission that was just accomplished. You really get a sense of the warrior nature. Jaimie Alexander, always beautiful, and sheâs had a slight redo on her costume.
So the Observatory, there you go. You can see that in the design, the beams are still being put up. Itâs still in the middle of being rebuilt, and what that allows for us to provide is once the Bifrost is fully operational, whirls, it becomes a viewing onto the curvy cosmos. Youâll see celestial bodies and planets and all kinds of little wonders of space that we werenât allowed to before because of how the structure was built, so it actually allows us to do unique visuals, and it still has all the gears and the various elements that people liked from the original design. While not complete, it works.Â
Heimdall [Idris Elba] also has some extraordinary scenes in this film, a much larger role, and he turned out to be a fan favorite in the last film. We were lucky to have him come back to us, and thatâs his redesign. Shiny sword in his hand, but kind of a gunslinger, rocket element, so he just looks tremendous. It looks amazing on him.
This is an important element to the story, that is Jane Foster, and she should not be standing that close to that. We brought out Chris Eccleston and a bunch of Dark Elves and Adewale and Chris and Tom and did a lot of great work out here, those first and second unit. Weâll do a lot of VFX, but for whateverâs with us, thank God, and weâve got some extraordinary stuff, and the boys are tortured. Itâs really cold, and sometimes fans on while it was cold.
This was in Iceland?
KYLE:Â Yeah, it was all in Iceland, yeah.
Are those real shots, or are those concept art?
KYLE: Those are all concept art, but it was based on the shots we had taken on scouts. Then we went back to those places and actually shot it all up, so it was amazing. So this is the Hall of Science again, and what youâre gonna see today. Itâs gonna be a pretty neat spot, that we need to explore, and weâll go into the various breakthroughs and discoveries of the Asgardians, where youâll see functioning models of the Big Bang; all these wonderful technologies that no human has laid eyes on before. Inside itâs going to be this living tree, which we will believe is kind of an intercell, the cosmic tree. You know, the effects and woes and success of the universe are kind of spoken through this living object. So should the end of all things ever come, thisâll probably be the first thing to fall. We have a really tremendous scene in here with Thor and Odin.
We didnât see it.
KYLE: Great, so he looks, like I said, this was a concept design. The final look and hair I think exceeds where this design went, but he really looks tremendous in this film. The throne room is one of the few connecting pieces that we have from the first film that weâre bringing back in this one, and again itâs just weâve added some more detail and some additional elements, again to show the many ages of kings who have come before Odin.Â
You saw most of this. This is recent additional, a lot of concept design, so... the Harrows, and they have a unique black hole kind of engine, where they actually kind of pull themselves through space as opposed to propel themselves. That was an idea that Alan Taylor was really excited about, so theyâre very unique in the way they move through space and they way they do damage and hurt people. Thereâs some scale reference on The Ark.Â
Weâre actually going to be putting some boats, both in the seas and the skies, in this film. Youâre actually gonna see where the Viking ships came from, and the MCU. Weâre going with the idea that the Asgardians came to early man, met the beginning of the Viking people. They had ships like this, their technologies inspired the Vikings to build their longboats and their various structures. So weâre turning history inside out, so instead of the Vikings creating the gods, the gods created the Vikings. We get to see whatâs the Asgardian take to inspire what we know on Earth so well, and we have a pretty spectacular scene in one of these skiffs.Â
Are those wings?
KYLE: Yeah, basically, thereâs different kinds of sails, depending on how fast a ship goes, it has to have different kinds of mechanics. Then again, just to show you again, how Asgard will look from a distance -- it is showing the wild and actually shooting on location. Then we can lay in these elements, but itâs about just getting to know Asgard better as an entire realm as opposed to a very specific place. Thereâs some good examples of a very early test we did, these last two. This one is especially great. We shot some stuff in Norway, and we added just a few elements, none of these buildings or anything are final, but it gives you a sense of, âOh, I understand why that would be built there, and thereâs Odinâs palace way off in the distance.â You just get a sense of a realness to the world, and then when you see one of these skiffs, moving through the water and then suddenly take flight towards Asgard without using the water at all, it just keeps that whole curvy, you know, Lee Simonson Asgard alive. Always keeping the high tech elements there, like the Rainbow Bridge, but doing it in a way that really feels relatable.
Is there poverty in Asgard? Do we see any of that?
KYLE: Uh, not in this movie, but there are different classes. I mean, they are just a people. There are bar maidens and bartenders. We always have to debate, are they all gods? I guess if they all came to Earth they would be, but here theyâre just people with kids and jobs, and they look after each other so I think thereâs this probably a society that wouldnât allow anyone to fall that far. I think everyoneâs got to have a purpose. Itâs a question, weâve never gone too far down that path, but I think itâd be a pretty horrible shame if Thorâs like, âIâll go protect Earth, but my own people? Meh.â So I think itâs important that we look after the Asgardians in a way that feels right, but itâs also like, hey, some people have got to wash dishes and they own bars.Â
Whatâs lovely about the pub is you feel like these guys have been coming here since their first fight. Thereâs old shields on the wall. Itâs a wonderful feeling of children running in and sitting on laps. All the dads and wives drink mead and revel and tell stories. Thereâs just this homeyness to it where youâd say, âIâd love to live in a place like that.â And theyâre all shapes and sizes. Theyâre not all coming off the model runway. They feel like real folks. Voluptuous, skinny, not the hottest, just it feels real. They canât all look like Chris. How could they?
So again, and then I have a couple shots of the final battle. We got a stake in this for sure, but before I let you guys go, I want to show you one more thing. This is what Kevin said I could show you.
Where was that supposed to be?
KYLE: Earth. Alright, so this only has about the first three and a half weeks of work in it, ultimately, but itâll give you a little taste of something weâre doing, and it does explain a little bit of the make of what Iâm saying. We had to absolutely come back and answer all the questions and promises from the first movie. We have to acknowledge what happened with the Avengers, because why the hell wouldnât we? We also had to a find a way for people to come in and go, Iâm not into superhero movies, Iâll try it, you know, and we hope we donât burn them. But in this film you canât sit down and just go along for the road. We did create a new character, a guy named Ian, who is Darcy Lewisâ [Kat Dennings] intern, so our intern has an intern, and heâs kind of the fresh human eyes in this experience, like Darcy was so well in the first film. Again, start small with these kids, then we show the threat, we meet our heroes and friends, find out where our folks are from Earth that we love so much, and the story just kind of rolls out at a very comfortable pace, so I think weâve done enough handholding to allow anyone to come in, but also keep it pace-y and payoffs for people with us for so many movies.Â
[Shows the press the first trailer].
KYLE: Itâs gonna be good. It is really, really good. So thatâs kind of dog and pony, but you know, being on both movies, seeing the process, knowing the pieces as they come in, I can just tell you that I think people are going to be really pleased. If they loved Avengers, I think thereâs a lot for them here. If they loved Thor, it only gets better. I donât know. I mean, weâre very fortunate coming in having so much to work with and such talented people involved. The team here is extraordinarily talented, which youâll see as you go around and see the pieces being made, and Alan Taylorâs brought a rich and real vision to this film, and I think itâll really connect with everybody. Look at Game of Thrones, you know, connecting to such a wide audience. My wife saw the White Walkers thing, and at first sheâs like, âOh my God, kill me!â And then sheâs hooked with the first episode.Â
Thatâs our job. We drag our friends to the theater sometimes and itâs on us to do it the next time. I think weâve got a really special film here, and this is just a small, small piece of whatâs being done. Thatâs kind of the way to go.
We donât see much of Earth there. Does that mean, besides the couple of bits in there, does that mean much less Earth than the last movie?
KYLE: Itâs about a fifty-fifty split. Like I said, thatâs only a few weeks of footage to be honest, that we were able to put together so quickly, and a lot of Earth is still to come. No, thereâs a good amount of time we spend there. Itâs half on Earth, and half on other worlds. A good chunk on Asgard, but we are on other worlds as well.
We saw a few shots of Stonehenge in there. Are we gonna get a big, fat story there?
KYLE:Â It definitely plays into the storyline, yeah.Â
Do we see Odinâs vault again?
KYLE: The vault isnât in here, but you can, like I said, you can see the prison and other sides of Asgard youâll see, but the vault doesnât come into play here. Not in this story.Â
Whoâs playing this Ian character you mentioned, the intern?
KYLE: Jonathan Howard. Heâs a wonderful actor. I think he was in World War Z. Heâs really tremendously talented. We had a bunch of guys come in, and Kat Dennings was such an amazing breakout for us, and then she went on to star in 2 [Broke] Girls.  It was tough. This guy had to earn his place in a group of three did so well -- Natalie, Stellan, and Kat -- and he came in, and heâs just this lovable, sweet kid, who just canât catch a break with Darcy, or anyone else on the team to be honest. The way he kind of flounders and struggles to kind of find his footing with this gang is tremendous, and his small little story in this evolves beautifully.Â
Stellan, is he in it?
KYLE: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a shot of him with Alan. Yeah, heâs definitely in this. Couldnât do it without him.
How did the success of The Avengers -- you had a budget for Thor, and then each of these movies is getting bigger and bigger. Has that impacted the single filmsâ budget?
KYLE: I mean, again, I canât get into finances too much, but we never spend less than we need to make these movies what the audiences demand. If we start just cranking these things out with no money and no... you can just tell. You can just tell, all of sudden, when you look at the bottom line and not the experience with the fans, but it wasnât like, hey, Avengers made a lot of money, letâs just start throwing money at the screen, because thatâs not the success either. Lots of films have made a mistake, and we can just fix it with cash, but I think as you see the sets and you get to see the exteriors weâre working with, we just went out there. Spent more time outside of sets to just really capture the environments and the worlds, to get in there and prove the costume wasnât -- itâs just about elevating everything. So Marvelâs always going to do what it takes to meet the demands of our very demanding fans, as you guys know.  But also the other fans weâve just earned, they deserve it. So weâre budget conscious, but weâre not going to harm a film for the sake of a dollar.Â
Are you trying to stay away from S.H.I.E.L.D. for this movie? Youâve kind of had S.H.I.E.L.D. in the previous movies.
KYLE: Yeah, this story involves Earth to a large degree, but the comics are the best example. S.H.I.E.L.D doesnât always get involved and the Avengers arenât always there. There are threats that need to be dealt with on an individual basis, so S.H.I.E.L.D doesnât have much of a presence at all in this movie. It just depends on what the specific threat is, and since so much of this also involves other worlds, you know, S.H.I.E.L.D has no jurisdiction there.
This is part of the Phase Two as Kevin has said it. You guys are in production with Iron Man 3, you are getting ready for Captain America. You have all these other films including Avengers 2 announced. How much are you now laying groundwork in this, or at least setting possibly a few things up that will payoff in Guardians of the Galaxy or Avengers 2?
KYLE: You know, Iâd say, again, I have to be careful with how I word this, but I think the biggest thing we are is very conscious of what weâre all doing. We donât want to paint ourselves into corners and say, âWe canât use him, we just killed him.â So we have to be very careful how we lay the pieces out, and the threats thatâll build to the greater threat will always be, I think they always start smaller and then build to the next Avengers film. The thing we need to be careful of, and Kevin says from the very first film, is the bigger picture of these Avengers, of these big group sagas can never overwhelm the individual story.Â
If we do that, we destroy our whole thing, because all of a sudden these guysâ individual journeys as characters just donât matter anymore. Itâs like, well Iâll just wait for them all to get together again. I mean, Iron Manâs a fucking awesome story to follow. Itâs a tragic character. I canât wait to see what happens in this next story. Thor I think, is at its deepest point ever. Thereâs more humor, thereâs more fun, thereâs more loss and sacrifice and struggle. Itâs just getting better, and Avengers is only deepening their individual stories, so Avengers should be an additional payoff but not whatâs driving everything else, otherwise the individual sagas become worthless. There are scenes, but theyâll become clearer as we get to Avengers.
You mentioned that weâre looking at the dungeon, and I know from the casting and of course the rumors, are we gonna see some of these fire demons?
KYLE: Youâre gonna see aliens from all over. Specifically? You know, weâll wait and see. Like I said, we are moving further out in the nine realms of the universe. Canât fly too far before you hit something else in the universe.
Where are the Marauders from?
KYLE: Well basically, weâre considering most of them outside of the nine realms. There are some from the world weâve already touched on and mythology speaks of. Youâll also probably see some weaponry inside the armory thatâll be familiar to you guys. These guys are from all over and theyâve banded together just to be kind of space pirates. We wanted to keep the widest kind of look and feel of the MCU, and see what could be outside of what just Thor patrols. Itâs also great to see rocket launchers and laser guns and machine guns. Itâs whatâs out there. Itâs about time we got out there to show that. It was exciting.
Is Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, is he working for someone else?
KYLE: Thatâs hard to say. I know in the comics he did.Â
Whatâs the difference with having Game of Thrones out there, and with The Hobbit coming back, what sort of difference does this have on this movie, where you kind of have other thing to compare to?
KYLE: Thatâs a funny question, because when we first started working on Thor the first time around, Kenneth [Branagh]âs like, âI donât want like chicken in their beards and bones, you know. It could look like Vikings in space.â And if you look in the comics, it isnât. This is beautiful fusion of the Viking culture with wonderful advanced technology. So the science fiction element always needs to be present. So in the pub, where youâll see wooden tables and glasses of mead, and families, if you look around the room, the lighting elements are completely other worldly. The toys the children play with are these flying skiffs. The advancements of Asgard are always present, just to keep that science fiction life alive always, because where we donât see ourselves in competition with The Hobbit, which such a -- weâre all so excited about, we all love Lord of the Rings, we all love what Alanâs done with Game of Thrones, so we love all that stuff -- but weâre trying to stay well outside of that competition. I think, I use those as great examples because of the realism they brought to those worlds. We stick to the science fiction angle for ours, and keep it unique and very reflective of what we loved in the comics. If weâve done our job right, and I feel weâre right on track, it should feel like the Asgard from the first film, and youâre just gonna get deeper exposure to it from both the personal and a walking through the sights and sounds of it as well. I think weâre really onto something in this one.Â
Iâm curious about the action scenes. Obviously each of these films, you know youâve been raising the bar. Talk about how youâre possibly raising the bar in action scenes in this, and also, are there a number of action set pieces? Are there one or two that are just massive? A lot of little ones?
KYLE: Thereâs action throughout the whole film, and itâs obviously what the story dictates. None of us, again, are trying to replicate what was in Avengers, but I think this one has an intimacy of combat, so that the losses are deeper, the struggle is more vicious, and more personal. When youâre in that combat, you really feel it, and the people you are fighting, you actually have to have a little stake in those fights. The platform where one of these battles take place, because of things with the conversions, take the environment upside down and break a lot of the rules, so I think itâs unlike anything weâve done yet, and no two action scenes are alike in this film, so I think we surprise and delight all the way to the end. Plenty to be seen on the action side.Â
Iâll tell you some of my most favorite scenes shot so far have been the quieter ones. Weâve really got some wonderful performances out of everyone. From Tadanobu Asano and Chris Hemsworth early on in the film, but then anytime you put Tom Hiddleston and Chris in room, itâs just electric. Itâs just stupid how good they are now. They have such a shorthand. Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Idris, I mean the names keep coming, and even Jonathan, who just joined us, heâs doing a great job. Weâve been very blessed with some brilliant casting. Weâve had wonderful people help us with that, and the talent has only gotten better and better every time they become to us, so weâre really fortunate.Â
What was kind of the motivating factor for bringing in Eccleston to play Malekith? What was it about him?
KYLE: You look at his work and his range and his ability to kind of step into strange worlds and environments and bring wonderful life and character to them, and thereâs also a look to him. If you have a look at the comics, itâs a tough one, because we obviously had to evolve from that. He had the look and the feel and the chops that we needed to just bring a more relatable villain. Weâve gotten Loki, you know, you canât just be like, âI want to kill everyone!â So we needed someone who would bring new levels and a real range, and Adawaleâs the same. Heâs this wonderful lieutenant. Heâs not just this goon he sends off to fight. Thereâs a real brotherhood between the two of them, and you believe that they are truly fighting for what they believe is right, and thatâs where people enjoy those kinds of struggles. If itâs just the guy twirling his mustache, then who the hell wants to watch the movie? And these guys have done a beautiful job bringing life to extraordinary, weird characters. So itâs been great.
Just looking at Adewale yesterday, heâs hardly recognizable. Is it gonna be the same with Christopher?
KYLE: Oh no, no, no. Donât worry. Youâll see both of them. You do get a good look at them, and they move beautifully no matter what they have on, but you do get to see their faces and see their performance pure. Theyâre both really passionate, so weâre fortunate.
For more
Thor: The Dark World set visit coverage:
- 50 Things to Know About THOR: THE DARK WORLD Plus Spoiler Free Video Blog Recap
- Tom Hiddleston Talks THE AVENGERS Aftermath, the Darker Tone, His Ownership of the Character, and More on the Set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD
- Chris Hemsworth Talks Expanding Beyond Asgard, Building to THE AVENGERS 2, and More on the Set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD
- Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Talks Playing Two Characters, Algrim's Relationship with Malekith, and More on the Set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD
- Director Alan Taylor Talks the Constantly Evolving Script, 3D, Moving from HBO to Marvel, and More on the Set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD
- 10 New High-Resolution Images from THOR: THE DARK WORLD