Johnson on the Penance Stare: “Penance Stare – we’re still working on it. It’s gonna be... That’s the toughest one of the whole movie. I don’t want to do the little vignettes because we’ve seen them before.
Penance Stare, for anyone who doesn’t know, is when you look in someone’s eyes. Ghost Rider says, ‘Look into my eyes,’ and you can look at all the sins they’ve done to other people, and you make them relive those sins like tenfold. He doesn’t kill anybody - Ghost Rider. He doesn’t kill but he does make – it’s supposed to be a fate worse than death because you’re trapped looking at all the s**t you’ve done to everybody else. So how to do that without becoming a little mini-movie is the challenge.”
Johnson on Ghost Rider’s Hellfire: “You mean shooting it? No, but I have him throwing, he throws hellfire in one scene which is pretty cool. If there’s any fire around he can manipulate it, but what I didn’t want to do is get into the Human Torch. That’s what’s really hard about the Marvel characters, there’s so many. The Human Torch or Pyro, you know what I mean? You’ve gotta be careful what makes you different from them.”
Eva Mendes on working with Nicolas Cage: Did she have any scenes with Cage while he was in the Ghost Rider outfit? “No… Well I did have one scene where I see him changing into Ghost Rider, and that freaks my character out as it would freak anybody out. Changing into a flaming skull. So that’s a pretty intense scene. And then also at the end there’s a really sweet thing.”
Turning to her director, Mendes says, “I don’t know if we’re really gonna still do that…” Johnson quickly cuts her off. “We shouldn’t give that away. You’re giving away everything. (Laughing) You’re giving away the end of the movie!” To which Mendes replied, “Because I’m actually Ghost Rider! It’s a great twist because I’m Ghost Rider!”
Eva Mendes on her action figure: Mendes didn’t think Roxanne would be made into an action figure. “I’m the chick in this movie and I like that. I own that, and I don’t kick ass. I’m the girl and I’m his woman and there’s something kind of just romantic about that.”
Johnson on the film’s Western tone: “It’s straight-out Western. Again, there’s so many comic book movies you’ve got to find a way to make yours different. That’s why I want to take it out of New York City or Gotham or whatever you want to call it, and take it into Texas. It’s an unnamed town and it feels like, very much like ‘Once Upon A Time in the West’ meets like a Hammer film, you know what I mean? It’s cool. It is. It doesn’t look like anything else.”
The director of photography from “Master and Commander,” Russell Boyd, shot “Ghost Rider” and Johnson claims Boyd’s a genius. “It’s shot like it really does look like a painting in a lot of the movie. But it’s got a huge Western vibe to it, big time.”
Johnson on including humor in “Ghost Rider:” “I didn’t want it to be too jokey, but Nic’s real funny so automatically there’s a lot of humor in the movie. You need it because it’s really horrific, you know? Because there’s stuff like when he changes and stuff - you're used to seeing it in the comic panel, but when you see somebody really, the flesh, you know, blown off his face and coming off the skull, it’s really intense. And even just the Ghost Rider walking around.
It’s not done, we just wrapped a few weeks ago so I haven’t seen it yet - I’ve only seen test footage - but even the test footage, you look at it and it’s just intense. It’s an intense image. So you have to balance that with some humor.”
“And you know, anytime you sell your soul to the devil, there’s darkness there. You’re dealing with such dark stuff so it’s nice that Nic, I thought, just acting opposite him, he made so many fun choices that are real. Because you know when the stakes are high in life, oftentimes we make jokes to just survive and to get through it,” said Mendes.
PAGE 4: Ghost Rider's Voice, Learning from "Daredevil," and Shooting for a PG-13 Rating
