He's living the life fantastic
Gruffudd on major career 'Rise'
By Evan Henerson, Staff Writer
Ioan Gruffudd is leading a fantastic life.
After years playing Horatio Hornblower for the A&E series of the same name, Gruffudd has tapped into his second franchise.
And for the 33-year-old, Wales-born Gruffudd, this one's a real stretch. He plays elastic-limbed Reed Richards - aka Mr. Fantastic - the erstwhile leader of the quartet of scientists who are exposed to cosmic radiation and emerge with super powers to become the Marvel Comics icons, the Fantastic Four.
In the "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" (which opened Friday), Richards' impending marriage to fellow Four-ite Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) is imperiled by - don't you just hate when this happens? - a global threat. An alien life form known as the Silver Surfer (modeled by Doug Jones, voiced by Laurence Fishburne) has come to Earth on a galactic seek-and-
destroy mission.
To make matters worse, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), the FF's nemesis from the first film, is back and up to more mischief. Can Reed, Sue, Human Torch Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) and The Thing (Michael Chiklis) meet the challenge?
Bet your "our-first-flick- made-$330-million-worldwide-and we're-hungry-for- more" keister on it.
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Speaking from London shortly before the film's premiere, Gruffudd (his last name is pronounced Griffith) talked about comic book franchises, his career and his "fantastic" run.
What's different this time around?
The first movie was sort of an origin movie, setting up how we became the Fantastic Four. Everybody was a little tentative with the style and how to represent that. We were all so concentrated on telling the story to sell it to a broader audience. This time around, we're firmly established, and we're sort of celebrating the fact that people know and like us now. So we're going to take our time with telling the story and establishing relationships.
Establishing relationships? While the fate of mankind is hanging in the balance?
Exactly; that's the beauty of it. If you're not empathetic toward the characters, you won't really care that they're going to be suffering and that the end of world is nigh. I'm really proud of the fact you're with us throughout the whole movie.
Q: A: Q: A:
Reed and Sue have a child in the comics.
Yes, Franklin, who has such extraordinary powers to such an extent that they have to keep a lid on him. I'm looking forward, if we do get into a third movie, to maybe have Franklin in our midst. It would be interesting to see if Reed and Sue have to put him out there to save the day, if they're dealing with such a powerful arch enemy that they need his help or do we want to expose our child to that?
In "Rise of the Silver Surfer," Reed's got this speech where he puts a hostile self-important general (played by Andre Braugher) in his place. When you delivered those lines, did you ever think to yourself, "Oh for heaven's sake, I studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. I played Hamlet!"?
(laughs) All that training at RADA helped enormously with doing a movie like this. I think it's such a great moment for the character. You see his final transition coming into the Mr. Fantastic character in the comic book. I may not have a great Shakespearean speech, but that's what I was imagining it was, and I needed to have that gravitas and weight behind it.
The members of the Fantastic Four practically live in each other's pockets. Off set, do the four of you ever even see each other?
The four of us all live in L.A., and Chris and I often bump into each other socializing on the club scene late nights in Hollywood. Michael's still doing his series and we're all working or off doing something fantastic elsewhere. That's life as an actor: Everyone's so busy, so you have to hold on to the treasured moments of promoting a movie around the world together.
How many different ways do people find to mangle your name?
There's something new almost every day, and, to be fair, I can see that with the way it's spelled, especially my last name. But I've always maintained it's a matter of educating people, and one day they'll associate that spelling with "Griffith" in the same way we learned to say "Rafe" for Ralph Fiennes. So it's a matter of time.
Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651
evan.henerson@dailynews.com ---------
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