At this year's Comic-Con, I was able to sit down with Karl Uban for an extended video interview.  Urban was at the Con to promote his upcoming hard-R adaptation of the comic book series Judge Dredd.  For those unfamiliar with the film, Dredd is an adaption of the 2000AD comics character Judge Dredd, and it stars Urban, Olivia Thirlby, and Lena Headey.  The film follows Dredd and rookie Judge Cassandra Anderson (Thirlby) fighting through a tower that's crawling with thugs in their attempt to bring down drug overlord Ma-ma (Headey).  I actually got to see the film at Comic-Con and it's great.During my interview with Urban we talked about the positive reviews for the film, the R rating, how he never takes off his helmet and how he got involved in the project, his process for getting ready for a role, his thoughts on how the film turned out and more.  In addition, we also talked about the Star Trek sequel including working with the IMAX cameras, what his first few days on set were like, and being able to film on a fully-built Enterprise set, and more.  Hit the jump to watch.dredd-3d-movie-posterKarl Urban Time Index:

  • :32 Talks about the positive response at the preview screening of Dredd at Comic-Con.
  • 1:20 Why were people reluctant to believe him that Dredd would never take his helmet off in the film?
  • 2:45 Talks about how hard the R-rating is in the film and whether that was the intention from the get-go.  Urban said he wasn’t as aware of how graphic it would be until he saw the film at the Comic-Con screening.  Says the slo-mo drug/visual effect turns the graphic violence into art.
  • 4:06 How close did the final film resemble what he was initially pitched?  Says it turned out better than he could have imagined.
  • 5:03 Once he gets the script, how early does he start preparing and working on the character?  Says he likes to start early.  Talks about how they stripped down and took out a lot of Dredd’s dialogue.
  • 7:09 Star Trek 2.  Talks about what his first few days back were like and being able to film on a fully-built Enterprise set that’s all inter-connected for tracking shots.  Says you’ll see more of the Enterprise in this movie.
  • 8:56 Working with the IMAX cameras on Star Trek 2.  Says the cameras are bulky and you don’t get to do long takes, but the quality is incredible.  Says Abrams fell in love with the format.
  • 9:23 Urban announces “special Star Trek 2 footage” dropping during Comic-Con.  You can watch the joke footage right here.