Den of Geek: You were kind of a comic book nerd growing up.
What were the first books you got into as a kid?
And then it started getting a little bit more esoteric and more sort of graphic novel-y sort of stuff.
Yeah, I was really into it.
I spent every penny I had on that stuff.
Do you still have them?
My mom got rid of them when I wasnt looking.
Do you still read stuff now?
I tend to wait until things are collected in a thicker edition because I cant wait.
Since you are playing a villain, do you have a favorite villain?
Magneto was always….just so badass.
He was badass, but also conflicted and complex in a great way.
And, of course, I loved the first movie I ever saw wasSuperman.
The Lex Luther Gene Hackman, hes one of my favorite actors anyway.
Hes just having a ridiculous amount of fun.
Thats always the trick with the villains, knowing when to go big.
Do you feel like you knew when to pull it back and when to go for it?
There are definitely several different Darren performances in the can that you could make totally different movies.
you might really play that up for laughs.
But you pay the price in terms of then you dont have a scary villain.
The villain needs to be scary for the hero to be heroic.
You were cast by original director and co-writer Edgar Wright.
How did the character change from his version to what we have now?
I think the backstory was there.
That was all there.
And I think it was more about just really focusing on the motivation being this father/son relationship.
I think that was just really pushed.
I think that was really the main difference.
This is, I think, the first film youve been involved with thats got really big special effects.
The hardest part was the performance capture although I dont think its technically performance capture.
But everything else was very instinctual.
Let me ask you aboutThe Straina little bit.
What kind of changes do we see happening to Ephraim in Season 2?
What kind of arc do things follow as we go into the show?
We saw him drinking at the end of Season 1.
And thats where were starting with Season 2.
But one thing that sort of gives me license is to have a sense of humor about this.
Thats a challenge with the show is that its so tragic.
All these awful things keep happening to our main characters and it just gets worse and worse.
Im glad to be able to break that tension with a little bit of a fuck it attitude.
Just in general the show is becoming bigger on a larger scope.
Before it was sort of status quo New York City and then there are these isolated horror events.
And now its undeniable that the city is being taken over and it really is a war zone.
That was a real challenge with shooting because you cant just shoot the street anymore.
And theres also a lot more of a sense of a backstory.
They have these flashbacks about a lot of the characters stories.
The story spans thousands of years and four continents.
Did Guillermo direct any of this season?
He didnt direct any whole episodes, but he did a lot of second unit work.
Ant-Manis in theaters this Friday (July 17).
