At the premiere for 'Kraven the Hunter,' Alessandro Nivola tells THR his role was a lot of character work and says, "it was more like playing a Bond villain."
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00:00It's rare to see an R-rated superhero film these days.
00:04Why do you think it was necessary to have that rating for Kraven the Hunter?
00:08Um, just because he kills so many people.
00:12Simple enough, simple enough.
00:13What do you think was the craziest stunt that was pulled off in this film?
00:18Oh, um, God, it's so hard to say because I didn't really do any stunts.
00:24I had like a guy being me doing crazy stunts.
00:28He did some crazy things.
00:30He jumped off of cars and lifted trucks up in the air and threw them and
00:36I was home like, you know, having a pizza at that time watching the NFL game on TV.
00:42Yeah.
00:43You weren't even on set for that.
00:44You're like, oh, this is your day to shine, buddy.
00:46I mean, the beauty of the role is that there was very little CGI.
00:52It was more like playing a Bond villain.
00:55It was all character work for me.
00:57And I had a very specific guy in mind who I built the character off of, who was a
01:04Russian poet, friend of mine and my wife, Emily Mortimer's named Philip Nikolayev.
01:10Remember that name and read his poems.
01:13He's a brilliant poet.
01:16But he's an eccentric guy and had a very particular way of talking and a very particular
01:21look about him.
01:22And I just imitated him and I got them to make me a wig that was like his hair.
01:29And I built the character from the ground up like any other role that I've played.
01:35And I didn't really have to do a lot of running and punching.
01:40I left that up to Aaron and my stunt double.
01:44I also wanted to ask you about The Brutalist.
01:46It's been getting so much award season buzz.
01:48How special was it to be a part of that project?
01:50And where were you when you heard that they got the Golden Globe nomination?
01:55Well, it's been a crazy few weeks because The Brutalist, this movie, and Pedro Almodovar's
02:04movie, The Room Next Door, all opened in the same week.
02:09This one today, Friday, and then The Brutalist and The Room Next Door next Friday.
02:16So I literally came from a Brutalist screening a few minutes ago to this one.
02:24It was a total coincidence that we made these movies at different times over the past two
02:28years and they just happened to end up coming out at the same time.
02:32But they're all very different roles, all three of them.
02:37And there's something kind of great about people being able to see them all at once.
02:44I like to think of, if last year was Barbenheimer, this year is The Cravenist Next Door.
02:52The Cravenist Next Door!
02:54Hashtag!
02:55We're going to make it happen!