WAMG At The OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL Press Day (Part 1)

Last week, WAMG took a journey down the yellow brick road in celebration of Disney’s new film OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL while attending the press day for the film at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, CA. No… really! They had a yellow brick road!

While at the junket, WAMG attended a press conference for the film. The conference was split into two parts. Below you will find the first half with actors James Franco, Mila Kunis, Joey King, and producer Joe Roth. Enjoy!

When small-time magician Oscar Diggs (James Franco) pulls one flimflam too many, he finds himself hurled into the fantastical Land of Oz where he must somehow transform himself into the great wizard—and just maybe into a better man as well.

Q: Okay.  Uh, this is for Mr. Franco. What was it like to work with Sam Raimi again, but for a completely different film now?

 JAMES FRANCO: I love Sam.  He’s, uh, uh, I-I’ve known Sam for over ten years.  Because we did the-the Spiderman Trilogy together.  And he is one of the most fun directors to work with and that is no small thing, um, when somebody, um, you know, a director on a film really sets the tone, uh, 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-and they are.  So, I love working with Sam.  I-I’d do anything with him.

Q: My question is for Mila.  Your character, without giving anything away, has an incredible arc.  And earlier Sam was saying how you kind of came up with the idea of playing your character as a woman scorned.  And I’m just wondering, can you talk a little bit about that process and, um, you know, a little bit about the arc but without giving away too much.

MILA KUNIS: Sure.  Um.  You know, it was one of those things where I-I couldn’t, I couldn’t, 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, 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.  And, um, and-and then it was just given to me, kind of like a gift.  I mean, here’s a girl who’s incredibly naïve 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, um, and then gets her heart broken.  And-and probably doesn’t have the emotional tools of-of dealing with heartache.  Doesn’t want to deal with it.  Takes the easy way route, uh, given by her sister.  And goes through a-an emotional transformation that’s mirrored by a physical one and so happens to change color.  But, um, I honestly viewed her as just a normal girl who gets her heart broken who just so happens to be, um, a witch that can fly.

Q: Follow-up for Mila, of the same topic.  You’re following in the footsteps of Margaret Hamilton, who’s sort of the last word on wicked witches… but hers is a performance of another era.  It’s a very broad and caricature performance.  I don’t mean that as a criticism but that’s not something that would fly today.  So, I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how you navigated that previous performance and how you sort of brought it up to date, brought the character up to date without losing the-the mad cackles and the stereotypical wicked witch?

MILA KUNIS: Uh-uh-uh–  It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  I mean, I’d be lying if I told you that it wasn’t incredibly frightening because it is and she was phenomenal and did create such an iconic character for going on eighty years now, that is so associated with so many things, you know, let alone Oz or Halloween or witches in general, that, um, that I wasn’t gonna touch it.  And not re-watch “Wizard of Oz”, I didn’t go there because it was, there was no way of me ever doing it justice.  And so this is the 21^st version of that, I guess, which is maybe a, there’s a corset involved and it’s a little tighter and she’s maybe not hunched over so much.  But, um, but, uh–  what she did will be forever be in my mind, the greatest witch of all time.  It’s like a love letter to her, I guess, in a way.

Q: Joey, your character China Girl looks very sweet, but she manipulates people by crying.  She’s packin’ a shiv.  Do you think that she was as so deep and dark? Something going on there, or what was your take on her?

JOEY KING: Oh, she’s evil.  No, I’m kidding.  Um, she’s a, she’s a, she just called me a China Nerd.  No, I-I’m very, uh–  Well she’s very delicate and, um, her appearance is that way, anyway.  But her personality definitely, um, kind of contradicts with her looks.  She’s very feisty and sassy and she manipulates James and Fin, uh, Oz and Finley, um, 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, um, I’m just like holding onto his leg and finally they say “yes”.  So she’s very, um–  And then whole personality change.  So she’s definitely, um, manipulative and she’s a, she’s very calculating and very smart.  But I like her.  She’s funny.

Q: James… I saw that you had to learn magic for the movie.  What was that like?  And then have you used it in real life since to kind of show off?

JAMES FRANCO: Yeah.  I got to learn with Lance Burton, who, um, is a great magician from Las Vegas.  And I got private lessons.  It was, uh, it was pretty fun.  And, um, and I, and I could accomplish the tricks.  There were even more tricks than, um, made it into the film.  Uh, 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-I probably would get a lot of attention.  But, um, I need, um, I need a lot of help from Lance to-to-to pull them off and, uh, 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, uh, sword-fighting or, you know, flying a plane that I, uh, just don’t use very much after I’m-I’m done with the movie.

Q: Mr. Franco, your character is cocky, looking for greatness, a heart-breaker, and then, you know, you want the audience to also feel sympathy for you. How-how do you walk the-between that line?  And also you’ve worked with Mila on “Date Night”. How was that coming back to working with Mila again?

 JAMES FRANCO: Well, I’ll answer the second part first.  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-I’ve yanked her, pulled her into.  She did a–  while we were in Detroit, she did a movie with s-some of my students from NYU and, um, we’ve done Internet things so, uh, I love working with Mila.  She and Joey are my favorite actresses to work with.  And, um, really.  I had a, I-I have a great time with both of them.  And so when I was asked if I was interested in-in doing “Oz”, um, you know, I had to have a meet-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, um, one of the, a few reasons that I wanted to do the movie.  And, um, so, uh, it was great, you know.  We have a dy–  you know, 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, um, easy-going.  She-she’s done a lot of comedy so I think, you know, she’s very good at, um, uh, acting on her feet, doing improvisation, figuring things out in a, in a very, um, organic way.  And, um, and that’s, I think, how I like to work so she–  So, I’ll do anything with Mila.  Um.  And, uh, what was the first part?

Q: Character acting? 

JAMES FRANCO: Oh, oh, yeah, so, you know, the-the character, I think, as written, was very much, um, Sam’s idea.  I think it’s one of his big contributions.  Uh.  We had, you know, when you deal with Oz, as a subject, you, of course has a, have a fantastical land.  And-and, um, so I had faith that Joe and the-the designers and everyone would be able to create, uh, a spectacular world.  But you don’t want just, um, the, a movie that’s a journey through a fantastical world.  You want the characters to have their own inner journeys.  And so Sam’s idea was, I-I think it was Sam’s idea or maybe a collaboration, that, uh, with the writers that, um, the character would also have a inner jour–  a journey, an inner journey.  And he would start off, uh, one place and then, um, have room to grow, uh, once he got to Oz.  And, I thought, as, you know, kind of selfish as he is, as-as much of a cad as he is in the beginning, it-it would never go to the point where he’s unlikeable because all of his, um, manipulations and, um, conning of people are sort of played for laughs.  And, um, and you can’t, and-and I can’t quite blame him for being the way he is because of-of his history, you know?  He-he grew up in cir-circumstances where, you know, you just wanted to get out.  He wanted something different.  And-and, um, so performing was-was, he saw a way out.  And so he’s gone a little too far in his ambitions and it’s blinded him to the love of the people around him.  But, in another sense you can’t blame, you know, the initial reasons for-for, you know, wanting to, for being the way that he is.

Q: Mila, I just wanted to ask about your amazing stunt work ‘cause evidently you did a lot of your own work up, way up there with a, with a broom-

MILA KUNIS: Why, thank you.

Q: With a broom and everything. Are you just a really physical person? Do you keep yourself strong when you’re not doing stuff like that so that when you do it, you really can get on top of it?  And was it fun?

MILA KUNIS: Yeah.  I mean, um, apparently I like it ‘cause I keep doing movies that requires, um, wires so I guess I had a great time.  But, um, yeah.  It’s just about same, uh, the truth is it’s not hard.  It’s really not hard to be wired and to have somebody else be responsible for the wire work and the-the, your life.  Your only responsibility is to sustain seventeen hours on those wires.  So, you know, uh, yeah, I guess I-I-I do work out a little bit for that purpose.  Like the-the movie that I’m doing that’s following up this one, I think, requires a lot more wire training than-than this one did.  But at least this one I know prepped me for it.  Yeah.

Q: You really took charge up there.

MILA KUNIS: I love it.  I have to tell you.  I do.  I will do and have done all my own stunts as much as-as allotted.  Yeah.  You know.

Q: Which movie coming up?

MILA KUNIS: The Wachowski movie.  That one requires a lot of wires.  A lot.  Everything seems to be wired.  Yeah.

Q: This question is for Mila also.  Um.  I just wanted to know how fun it was to play that really over-the-top witch character ‘cause obviously that’s not something you would normally play in really any other kind of movie.

MILA KUNIS: Yeah.  Very rarely are you given the opportunity to have such a fantastical character.  That’s the truth.  And so, um, it’s really fun.  Now.  I say this because I had incredible actors, um, 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-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.  But, um, oh, God, it’s so fun to be a part of this world.  So fun.

Q: James, uh, it was a beautiful film to watch, visually speaking.  Did it have any impact or inspire your own art work?

JAMES FRANCO: My artwork?  Um.  Yeah, I suppose.  I mean, um, I, you know, when we went and s–  to the premiere a-a few nights ago, um, it was the first time that I think, um, we’d seen the-the full thing with all the effects and-

 JOE ROTH: First time anybody has.

JAMES FRANCO: Okay.  So, and, first time anybody’s seen it with all the effects and knowing all the, um, work and time that went into that and hundreds, maybe thousands of people that-that, you know, real-made that-that realized, um, was just, I-I think a piece of art.  So, you know, it’s just, if anything, it’s just a beautifully, you know, made movie and the images are, you know, just artworks.  I don’t have, um, that kind of team underneath me for my own work, but, um-

MILA KUNIS: You have a pretty great team.

JAMES FRANCO: I have a great team that does other things.  Um.  But, uh, yeah.  I mean, it might inspire me in some ways.  Who knows?  Who knows what will happen.

Q: Hi.  This question is for Mr. Roth.  Um.  First of all, what’s your prior experience with the original Oz stories?  Um.  Childhood memories and that sort of thing.  And also why do you think the story continues to resonate today?

JOE ROTH: Well, I watched “Wizard of Oz”, uh, 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-every year.  Um.  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.  Um.  In the Baum book, actually, uh, it’s not a dream.  In the MGM movie, it is a dream.  Uh.  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.  So it’s, uh, uh, you know, the, uh, 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.

Q: Hi.  My question is for Joe.  Um.  Did you bring anything from your work on “Alice in Wonderland” into this film, as well?

JOE ROTH: Well, yeah, if you’re a producer with a brain at all, not even a big one, but a brain, you try to at least reverse engineer thoughts.  And, um, so with “Alice”, you know, we had a story that people loved.  We picked out things that we thought were, made them memorable.  Uh.  We hired a fantastic visual director in Tim Burton and had a really wonderful cast.  So when the idea of who is that man behind the curtain and how did he get there?  I was immediately struck by the idea that here was a movie that everyone had seen but no one really knew who that guy was.  He was only in the last few minutes of the movie.  So I thought it was a really wonderful starting point.  And then, uh, Robert Stromberg, who I had worked with as a production designer on “Alice”, I had brought him along and introduced him to Sam and I think he became an integral part of that.  And then once again, for me, as a producer, besides the idea, casting is the most fun and I wanted to make sure that we had a cast that would stand the test of time.  And so I’m hoping in years to come when we watch this on our wrist watches or wherever, however it is, you know, watch movies twenty years from now, um, it’ll be like, it’ll be not just the all-star cast from 2013, but a cast of, you know, actors who have gone on to further greatness.

Q: Mila, what’s the best part about playing a witch?  And for James and Joey, what was the best part about your character and were you a little jealous of the witch’s powers?

JOEY KING: Um, I-I don’t know if I was jealous of the witch’s powers ‘cause she’s wicked.  I was kind of jealous of Glinda’s powers ‘cause I wanted to make bubbles out of nowhere.  Hm?  But, um, uh, my favorite part about my character was how, um, how different her personality was from her appearance because she’s very, like, sassy and kind of manipulative and, like, you know, that kind of person so I really like her.  She’s really, um–  And also I like how small she is but she has that kind of personality and, like, it’s just like Finley, oh, um, Oz, and China Girl, when they start this adventure, they’re all just a bunch of goofballs and/or it’s-it’s really funny to get to see their, um, their relationship in the whole movie.  But, um, I-I’m kind of jealous that Mila gets to fly on a broom in the movie.

JAMES FRANCO: Uh, I have done a lot of wire work and I know what, uh, you have to do to, in order to look like you’re flying so I-I was not that jealous of, uh, what they had to go through.

JOEY KING: Wire work is fun, though.  I–

MILA KUNIS: It’s the first honest answer from anyone.  Thanks, James, I appreciate it.

JOEY KING: I love like doing harness work and stuff.

JAMES FRANCO: Um.  But I, you know, I just loved that the character was comedic, that he could go into this world and, um, bounce off it, rather than, you know, just, um, be pulled into it smoothly, and, uh, that, I thought, was a very unineat–  unique take on a world like this.  And, um, and as a performer was-was the most enjoyable part of it.

MILA KUNIS: As far as playing a witch, um, yeah, I mean, it’s fun.  It’s fun to play somebody that has no boundaries, that has no rules.  There’s no book you can read on how to play a witch so you kind of just create your own version thereof.  And, uh, yeah, it’s really-it’s great.

JOE ROTH: And as a producer, it’s the same as a witch.  There’s no boundaries.  Know there’s no rules.

MILA KUNIS: There’s no book.

JOE ROTH: Just kind a make it up, you make it up as you go.  It’s kind of the same thing.  I finally found a definition of what a producer does.

Q: James, you’ve got one of the most eclectic careers going around. I was just wondering how do you find the balance between doing a mainstream project like this and some of your more, shall we say, e–  uh, adult type of projects or extreme experimental things?  And do you ever get any flak over it from, uh, not necessarily the, maybe this film or whatever, do-do you get it– Do you have to take that into consideration officially, also, with-with filmmakers when you work on a big project like this?

JAMES FRANCO: I mean, I’m, uh, I do many different kinds of projects.  Um.  But I, you know, I try and be very responsible about how and where they’re released and I know that, you know, they’re for different kinds of audiences.  And so, um, um, when I do a film that’s released at Sundance, you know, I feel like it’s, you know, uh, I’m entitled to do material that pushes bound-boundaries because that’s an audience that, um, can take it and there’s a place for those kinds of movies and-and that’s one of the places.  So.  And then when I do a movie like this, I’m not-I-I know what the intention is and I’m not going to try and bring in material or-or-or anything that doesn’t fit in this world.  Uh, it’s my job to, uh, align myself with, um, the intention and-and tone of-of this world.  Uh.  So, it’s just a matter of, um, knowing the kind of project I’m working on and-and, um, and, you know, fitting myself into that.

Disney’s fantastical adventure “Oz The Great and Powerful,” directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum’s beloved wizard character. When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot—fame and fortune are his for the taking—that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity—and even a bit of wizardry—Oscar transforms himself not only into the great wizard but into a better man as well.

“Like” OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ozthegreatandpowerful

“Follow” OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL on Twitter: https://twitter.com/disneyozmovie

Visit the website: http://www.disney.com/thewizard

 OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL lands in theaters March 8