Malin Akerman and Patrick Wilson both had to endure the tortures of tight superhero-ish costumes for the big action drama Watchmen, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and directed by Zack Snyder. Set in an alternate reality in the 1980s, Watchmen follows a group of costumed vigilantes who are called into action when one of their own is murdered.
Reflecting on her time spent in latex, Akerman said, "The costumes were definitely a big challenge in their own sense. I don't know if anyone in here has a latex fetish. I certainly do not after this film. …It is definitely not the most comfortable thing to wear for 18 hours straight. It's very constricting and then you add heels to that and a corset and this long wig and then they go, 'Get out there and fight,' and you go, 'Really? In this outfit?' And the hair is going all over the place and also it also takes on the temperature of whatever room you're in so if it's really hot, you're boiling up. If it's really cold, you're freezing. The guys sort of had the opposite where it was all foam costumes and it was heavy and it was hot. For [Patrick] it was harder to do, I think, the kicks and such."
"Well, it's hard to lift your arms," admitted Wilson. "I will say in defense of that, they've sort of come… I can go back and watch Batman, Michael Keaton Batman and sort of understand now, like, 'Wow, he can't turn his head.' The leaps and bounds that they have come in design of the material - our designers were so great and actually really receptive to [our needs]. I remember wanting a couple scenes where I wanted to take the cowl off and have it down, so how to make the right material that you could wear it like that. I put the kibosh on the corset. They wanted a corset. I said if anything, we can corset when Dan's younger but the whole point of Dan, it's a pretty wide thing. I did not rock that. I worked too hard for the gut. I didn't want to lose it."
In addition to a full body costume reminiscent of a giant owl, Wilson had to wear goggles which presented their own set of problems. "Actually, that was a real problem early on in the fight. The first fight sequence that we did was in the jail and they had made them so sealed to my head almost. Not really sealed, but the suction on them was very [tight] and I was so hot, the only skin that was showing was here and my eyes. You'd get about 10 seconds into the fight and the goggles would fog up and then you couldn't see. So you're sort of thinking, 'Okay, what would Dan have done?' You're sort of cutting little slits in the goggles to let the air get out and doing all this. So the goggles became a real work. It became very difficult to try to figure out how you could wear them."
Ultimately, Wilson worked it out so that he could put lift them up and off of his face and have it still work within the character. "That's what we were shooting for - any scene that I could find," said Wilson. "We had I think maybe one scene, I forget what's in the movie now, but [with the goggles] down here, cowl back. I wanted all that stuff, cape off. I was trying to find as many of those as I could to really show, 'Wow, never seen that. Wow, not used to seeing that,' to make it as organic as possible. Seeing the zippers on the suit because you have to imagine, right, like how do they get into this costume? I can't imagine Dan had a bunch of people sitting around downstairs helping him out. So they tried to make it look as practical as possible for that reason because that's such a big part of the comic, to see him putting it on and stuff."
Wilson's commitment to the character really impressed his onscreen crime-fighting partner/love interest. "You know, I've got to say that something that's so fantastic about Patrick and working with him is I've never worked with someone who he really became the character when we were on set. It was so fab," said Akerman. "For me, every film is always a learning experience and I felt so lucky to be with this group of fabulous actors, Patrick being one of them. He paid so much attention to the detail, which all of us did essentially. We always carried the books around and made sure that we stayed as allegiant to the book as possible just because it was so important. But he was one of the main sources of that, definitely."
Taking on the Female Lead
Although Carla Gugino shows up in a few pivotal scenes in Watchmen, Akerman's the only female with a major role in the film. "She takes us away from all the violence and gives a softness to it," says Akerman of her character, Silk Spectre II.It wasn't until she'd become involved in the movie that Akerman learned her character isn't a fan favorite. "I didn't know that while it was being written she was sort of an afterthought, just kind of add a female character into it and she wasn't one of the main roles at first," revealed Akerman. "Also, in sort of the absolute book, you see all these vivid explanations of every character and then Laurie's character is kind of half a page. She definitely wasn't one of the mains, but I hadn't heard that [fans didn't like her] and I'm glad I hadn't before I went in because it might have changed… I personally think that she's a lovely character. I think she's this sort of vulnerable woman who's coming of age and finding her independence and finding love."
Patrick Wilson added, "I think that's also one of the benefits of the medium. When you think of so many things that you lose when you go from a book to a film, but for this, I think specifically with you and that character, there's a real difference in reading a female's portrayal, especially the conflict, especially if you're a man reading it and her conflict between Dr. Manhattan and Dan and you feel like you get it. Then when you see you do it and there's such a humanity and a groundedness to it, that's when I think film can really round out a character because it's a real person that you're watching and so much can be said with so little."
Page 2: On Finding the Humanity in Their Watchmen Characters and Laughing at Billy Crudup
