J.K. Simmons Talks About Terminator: Genesis

When we last ran a story about J.K. Simmons and the rumor was that he could be playing Detective Hal Vuckovich as it was stated he would play a detective in a possible 2017 scenario and they would also require a younger actor to play his role in the year 1984.

It has now more or less been confirmed that he will not play Hal but an entirely new character to the franchise.

While in Cannes promoting Whiplash, a movie that has had a good reception at Sundance he discussed the Terminator reboot in an interview with Empire.

“I was leery of it when it first came my way, when my agent sent me the idea for it,” said Simmons. “It’s a small part, which they insist gets much bigger in the sequels. But I was very pleasantly surprised by the script itself.”

This, I think, is a reimagining. They don’t want to call it a sequel or a reboot. It’s the world that James Cameron created with Arnold [Schwarzenegger, obviously]. All the leading characters are characters who have existed in that world – the character I play is new to it.”

“The script, I think, is very smart, and it’s going to be a wonderful part for Arnold to do. Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney are already shooting – we did a table read a few weeks ago – and all of them are going to be great.”

Simmons has worked with the director of the new Terminator movie ‘Alan Taylor’ before on TV series Oz.

“Alan Taylor is a wonderful director – I got to work with him on Oz a couple of times – so I’m optimistic that this can be one of those films. Y’know, it’s a big action franchise, but it’s also going to be a really intelligent, entertaining, enjoyable film.”

 

This movie is not a continuation but now classed as a re-imagining, so expect big changes in the new Terminator Trilogy, new characters, endless possible timelines and distortions to the story we once knew.

Total Film also managed to ask J.K. some questions to which his answers were:

“I can tease very little but the character I play is a small role that I’m told becomes larger in the sequels, which are planned of course,”

“When it was initially sent to me I was interested but a little sceptical about the project itself. And I read the script and it’s a wonderful script – it’s really smart and it has comedy, and obviously brilliant action and the sci-fi aspect of it, which is not a genre I’ve really been involved in before.

But it’s good storytelling and a fun little part. There’s Arnold, and Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney who play the characters who have existed in the world before. Then the character I play is a new character to this universe.

I went out to New Orleans a few weeks ago for pre-production, and I had a table read and it was very affirming that these actors and this script were really smart and fun and good.”

Oh shit, that word…”comedy”, “fun”. We will save a rant about this for later. If we had our way we would ban one-liners and comedy completely from this franchise. It would be torn out like the heart of a punk in the opening scenes of the first Terminator movie.

Total Film also asked J.K. if his secret role would be a Terminator “I will not answer that question,”  he said while chuckling.

So there you have it; many positives things have been said about this movie so far but will comedy, one-liners and PG-13 classification ruin everything good Terminator: Genesis has going for it… hopefully not but if the script is “smart” they may just get away with it. Just maybe.

Sources: Empire and Total Film