Oz the Great And Powerful feels like the big, grandiose, goofy film Sam Raimi has always wanted to make. His Spider-Man trilogy could be lumped there, but there’s something about the family-friendly nature of Oz that makes it perfectly suited for Raimi’s talents. Oz re-teams Raimi with James Franco, who didn’t get a fair shake in the web slinger trilogy, now is Raimi’s leading man as the title character. Whie many discussions have taken place about Franco’s casting, the one thing he does do right is capture the buffonish hero Raimi’s known for making.
We (the journalistic press) were fortunate enough to sit down with Mr. Franco, Mila Kunis, Joey King, and producer Joe Roth to discuss their roles. That’s right, the Oz press day was too big to contain into just one part.
For James Franco, you’ve teamed with Sam Raimi before on the Spider-Man films. What was different about this time?
James Franco: I love Sam. I’ve known Sam for over ten years. Because we did the Spider-Man trilogy together. And he is one of themost fun directors to work with and that is no small thing. When somebody, a director on a film, really sets the tone of just how people go about things. And so when you have someone like Sam, everybody is happy to be at work, everybody does their best. He’s a very collaborative director. You know, not just with the actors, with all departments. And it really makes people want to do their best because they all feel like they’re a big part of the movie and they, and they are. So, I love working with Sam. I’d do anything with him.
Mila Kunis, your character has an incredible arc. What was your approach to that?
Mila Kunis: You know, it was one of those things where I got very nervous about playing such an iconic character, or at least playing a character that had such an iconic end result. And I didn’t want to ruin it and I didn’t want to re-create it and I didn’t want to re-interpret it. And so in order for me to wrap my head around it, I had to make sense of her origin. Then it was just given to me, kind of like a gift. I mean, here’s a girl who’s incredibly naive and very young and doesn’t believe she’s almost worthy of love, has never really truly experienced love. Meets James’s character. Falls madly in love with him, very quickly, mind you, but nonetheless. And then gets her heart broken. And probably doesn’t have the emotional tools of dealing with heartache. Doesn’t want to deal with it. Takes the easy way route, uh, given by her sister. And goes through an emotional transformation that’s mirrored by a physical one and so happens to change color.
For Joey King, you play China Girl, who looks sweet but manipulates people by crying. What was your take on the character?
Joey King: Oh, she’s evil. No, I’m kidding. She’s very delicate and her appearance is that way, anyway. But her personality definitely kind of contradicts with her looks. She’s very feisty and sassy and she manipulates Oz and Finley, and it’s kind of funny because they totally get like duped by this little-little doll. A fourteen-inch little girl who’s made of porcelain. And she’s just like, “Please, take me away with you!” And then I’m just like holding onto his leg and finally they say “yes”. And then whole personality change. So she’s definitely manipulative and she’s very calculating and very smart. But I like her. She’s funny.
Back to James. You had to learn magic for the movie. What was that like?
JF: Yeah. I got to learn with Lance Burton, who is a great magician from Las Vegas. And I got private lessons. It was pretty fun. And I could accomplish the tricks. There were even more tricks than, um, made it into the film. We just had to cut some of them for time but, um, I got to learn quite a few pretty cool tricks that if I took them to parties, I probably would get a lot of attention. But I need a lot of help from Lance to pull them off and he doesn’t travel around with me. So it’s just sort of one of the skills that I’ve learned like along the way, like sword-fighting or, you know, flying a plane that I just don’t use very much after I’m done with the movie.
You’ve worked with Mila on a number of projects. How was it to work with her again?
JF: Mila and I have worked on many projects, at this point. Some very big, like Oz or Date Night. Some smaller projects that I’ve yanked her, pulled her into. While we were in Detroit, she did a movie with some of my students from NYU and we’ve done Internet things so I love working with Mila. She and Joey are my favorite actresses to work with. I have a great time with both of them. And so when I was asked if I was interested in-in doing Oz, you know, I had to have a meeting with Sam but I’d heard that Mila was either getting involved or was already signed on and-and so that was one of the big reasons that I wanted to do the movie. It was great, you know. We have great dynamics. Not only is she a great actor, I think one of the great things about Mila is she’s just a great collaborator. She’s very easy-going. She’s done a lot of comedy so I think she’s very good at acting on her feet, doing improvisation, figuring things out in an organic way.
For Mila, what was it like to play such an over-the-top character?
MK: Yeah. Very rarely are you given the opportunity to have such a fantastical character. That’s the truth. And so it’s really fun. Now. I say this because I had incredible actors that I felt safe with and I had the most incredible safety net of Sam Raimi and Joe. Knowing that should I maybe not do the greatest of a take, I would get, be allow, given another one, and another one. And so I was allowed to play around and kind of have that little tennis match back and forth. Well, if you take that away, it’s incredibly frightening because my character does have an end result that is so incredibly iconic that you just don’t want to mess it up. And you don’t want to play around with it too much ‘cause then it becomes something completely crazy and-and not believable. Oh, God, it’s so fun to be a part of this world. So fun.
For producer Joe Roth: why do you think the world of Oz continues to resonate today?
Joe Roth: Well, I watched Wizard of Oz as a kid. Uh, I think it came out every Thanksgiving or Christmas and I would never miss it. And you know, I thought it was a great fantastical journey and it was one of those two or three movies that I couldn’t wait to see every year. I think that it resonates, uh, for so many different reasons because each of the main characters have to go through transformation. A coward becomes a hero. You know, uh, someone gets a heart. Dorothy gets to grow up. In the Baum book, actually it’s not a dream. In the MGM movie, it is a dream. We wanted to make sure that we were consistent with Baum’s work and say that this is not a dream. This is really happening. The whole color, the idea of color coming in at that time. You know, so it’s just a really memorable piece of work for not just me but for-for most everybody. So of all those early iconic films, uh, that one stuck with me. That and, uh, the one with, um, Laurel and Hardy going down a, downstream which I can’t, I can’t remember what they, that movie was called, but they show that every Thanksgiving, too.
Oz the Great And Powerful is in theaters now.
