June 17, 2004
Alfred Molina On Doc Ock's Arms
Alfred Molina, who plays the villainous Doctor Octopus in the upcoming Spider-Man 2, told SCI FI Wire that filmmakers created his four mechanical tentacles with a combination of on-set puppeteering and post-production computer animation. The puppeteers imbued each tentacle with such personality that they even gave them names, he told reporters in a press briefing. "We had a lot of fun, actually," Molina said. "We got very close, because we were working with each other every day. We actually gave the tentacles names. ... The two big ones, the two down here [gestures to his legs], were very kind of male. They were the ones that kind of broke through things. There was Harry, Larry [then indicating above his head] Flo and Mo."
Molina added, "It was a mixture of practical puppeteers, the arms, [with] CG and animation. Well, we had a fantastic team of puppeteers, 16 [or so] guys and one woman, and a wonderful choreographer, ... who sort of essentially designed the movement. ... And the puppeteers and myself, we worked together very closely over a series of weeks to try and develop a sort of--How can I put it?--a sort of vocabulary of movement, a sort of language, if you like. so we could do great big things, like push a hole through a building, but at the same time, do delicate things, like taking off a pair of glasses or lighting a cigar. Or even one shot we did--which I don't think we ever used it--but we actually had one ... of the tentacles actually came out and wiped away a tear. So we had a really wide range of possibility."
Posted by MK Magazine at June 17, 2004 12:07 PM