Entrevista a Megan Fox

Director Michael Bay brings all of our favorite Autobots and Decepticons back to life on the big screen in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sequel to the 2007 blockbuster Transformers. Bay also brings back the robots human co-stars from the first film - Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and Kevin Dunn - for more intense, white-knuckle action.

And as part of the whirlwind PR tour promoting Transformers #2 Bay joined his Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen actors, minus LaBeouf and with Transformers newbie Ramon Rodriguez, in LA to talk this second film of the franchise.

Megan Fox, Michael Bay, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Ramon Rodriguez and Kevin Dunn Press Conference

Megan, what's changed for you since the first Transformers?

Megan Fox: "I think the movie, its success and how well it was received, has opened a lot of doors for me career-wise and I've been able to be a part of some films that I don't really feel like I deserve to be a part of, and that's due greatly in part or solely to the success of Transformers. I just did Jonah Hex with Josh Brolin and Michael Fassbender and John Malkovich. People in general, just actors don't get those kinds of opportunities. For me to have that is a huge blessing and that's because of the success of this movie."

Anything about your daily life?

Megan Fox: "Sure. Getting photographed at Whole Foods or coming out of Rite Aid with your shampoo bottles and stuff, that's new for me, but that's not that crazy. You adjust to that; you acclimate to that pretty quickly."

Michael, this movie destroys so much property. Was there anything that you thought, "I can't do this?" And Megan did you ever think, "I have to wear this?"

Megan Fox: "Oh, yeah. I have those moments on a daily basis, but the process of picking those outfits, like I don't have much of a say. I remember that Mike was auditioning Ramon [Rodriguez] and some of the other characters and there was just this roomful of men upstairs in his office…"

Michael Bay: "A few young guys."

Megan Fox: "No. It was Shia [LaBeouf], Ramon and two other actors and you. I had to come up and down and knock on the door and try on all my wardrobe, and I had like 18 different outfits. It was like white jean shorts and pink belly shirt and motorcycle boots. We went through like a whole thing and Mike was selecting them in the process of auditioning."

Michael Bay: "It's called multi-tasking."

Megan Fox: "Right, but I had no say. Clearly he has an eye for what should be and should not be in the movie and so I just trust him."

Michael Bay: "And about your question, it's called summer fun. It's a robot movie."

Kevin, do you feel your character shares the father role with Optimus?

Kevin Dunn: "Well, as far as I know, he was conceived by myself. I don't think Optimus got in there. Yeah, maybe, I guess there's a parallel in the script that he needs the guidance of Optimus, and me he kind of blows off, like kids regularly blow off their dad. But yeah, there's a paternal aspect of both characters."

Michael, what do you think is in here especially for the ladies that would make them want to come and see this movie?

Michael Bay: "Well, I think what was interesting about the first one, it's got relationships with the parents and the kids. Kevin [Dunn] is actually playing my father. That's very much how my parents were when I was growing up. What was making the movie accessible to everybody was the humor in it. I think that's how you make it accessible to everyone. It's not just a fanboy movie."

What do you think most women hone in on then?

Michael Bay: "Most women hone in on the humor. There are a lot of young women that say, 'I just want to see robots kicking ass.' I've heard that before. I think the relationship between Shia and Megan."

Josh Duhamel: "Tyrese offered to introduce himself in the second movie by doing a shirtless carwash scene on Optimus, but Michael didn't go for it."

Michael Bay: "I didn't, yeah."

Tyrese Gibson: "Thanks, Josh."

Does the IMAX version have more footage than the regular version? Is there more on the Imax cut?

Michael Bay: "Actually, the IMAX version, with film time if you want to talk, is 2 hours and 20 minutes exactly. It has, I think, probably about a minute more of footage. It's got some more fighting footage that took place in the forest, some additional stuff with Devastator. I have not seen it in IMAX. […]I'm excited to see that. It wasn't ready until this weekend."

Josh Duhamel: "I want to sneak in and see that."

What was your most favorite or memorable experience of working with members of the military?

Megan Fox: "I think just in general I was really pleasantly, not surprised with them, but they're all extremely chivalrous and very respectful, clearly, because they're disciplined. They're so much better behaved than the rest of the cast is, including myself though. They listen and take direction really well and we're all just f--king off."

Michael Bay: "If they could all be like that..."

Megan Fox: "It adds authenticity to the movie. Michael, you consult with the military on everything to make it authentic and make it real. And I also just enjoy being able to walk on the set and there's a hundred real soldiers, as opposed to walking on and it's a hundred actors from Orange County or L.A. in fatigues. It was just overall a really pleasant experience for me and I have an immense amount of respect for the soldiers and for our troops."

How did the military training differ from the first film?

Tyrese Gibson: "I would say honestly that the first go-round was so much more intense than the second, because we kind of went into it not knowing too much of nothing about the Air Force, military, Navy SEALS. For me, I didn't know the difference in the roles, the responsibilities of each one of the soldiers and the categories of soldiers. So I worked closely with someone called a CCT, which is a Combat Controller because I have to have dialogue to communicate with all of the aircraft, so that dialogue is very difficult. With Michael overseeing the dialogue, we've got to make sure that we cater to the real authentic dialogue of the Air Force but yet create a balance of making sure that the common folks who don't understand that language can understand it too. So it was a bit of a challenge, especially with all of the explosions and stuff going on around, a little challenge."

Josh Duhamel: "Yeah, the first one we had a few days out in Fort Irwin and the second time we just sort of jumped into it. I was in New York and we just sort of had a bit of a refresher course. But there are military advisors. Harry Humphries is out there. There's a number of people from all facets of the military and I think that we both took a lot of pride in trying to represent the military as closely as we could. I've got a lot of friends in the military - an aunt over in Iraq - so that was my main focus was to try to represent them all and make them proud. And if we didn't, they would let us know, believe me."

What were your favorite memories of making the movie?

Tyrese Gibson: "I would say compared to even the first one, I think our roles were so much more serious this time than the first round because there are so many moments comedic-wise throughout the film. I guess the outcome was Michael wanted us to kind of play it a little more serious to kind of raise the stakes and the pressure of what's really going on, which was fine. I enjoy doing the funny stuff to try and create a balance, but I just overall had fun with the experience. We all vibed and were laughing and having big parties, good energy on the set. It's so much pressure on the set because Michael runs a real tight ship, keeps everybody on the edge. Everybody's full throttle. I'm like, 'Look, man, if I don't do a party, I'm going to go crazy right now.' I try to keep everybody, the whole crew, the cast, everybody having fun while we were working."

Josh Duhamel: "Yeah, he took the night shift. I guess the most fun I had was the scene getting to… In the last answer I said we tried to be as accurate as we could, and then my favorite scene in the movie was throwing the National Security Advisor off the plane. But that's the most fun I had. It was just a fun scene to do and there was a nice little stunt involved. That was probably my most memorable, that or the gigantic bomb that went off."

Megan Fox: "1,000 gallons."

Tyrese Gibson: "1,000. We made history. The biggest practical explosion in the history of filmmaking that included actors."

Megan Fox: "With the actors present, yes. But Michael holds the other record. You hold both records, don't you?"

Michael Bay: "Yeah, let's not talk about that."

Megan Fox: "Okay, let's not talk about it, sorry."

Michael Bay: "That's the world record."

Michael, can you talk about your inspiration for the twins?

Michael Bay: "Well, I wanted two kind of younger Transformers, but with those two guys we used the guy who played SpongeBob and another actor. What's interesting when you work with voice actors is, especially with the twins, they did a lot of improv for their parts. We liked their improv and from there, we would animate for their stuff. When you do character animation, when you're building a character, it's not like an actor where you shoot the scene and you got it and you move on. With character animation, you shoot a bit of the dialogue, you work with the animators and then a little bit more of the dialogue and you keep going back and forth and it kind of builds until you finally have the shot that you want. But I just wanted something that would appeal to younger kids, and it seemed to really gravitate to those two characters. It's like the little engine that could with the Devastator scene."

Megan, how do you react to seeing your image on a huge IMAX screen and how do you feel about being a sex symbol?

Megan Fox: "I haven't seen the movie in IMAX and I just saw it for the first time a few days ago when we were in London. I usually don't watch myself. I don't watch playback. I don't look at still photos. I have a phobia of it, but I forced myself to sit down. I basically shot an entire glass of champagne so that I could get through the sitting of it. I was really, really pleasantly surprised and halfway through was sort of overcome with genuine emotion and I wanted to hug Michael because I had gratitude for him for making this movie. It so far surpassed my expectations. I think the character is sexy, but women in movies in general are sexy - and especially in Michael's movies. He knows how to make movies that get people in the theater and if that's part of the formula…"

Michael Bay: "If you look at the movie we got that first shot out of the way just to get it out for the young boys and move on. Okay? All right?"

Josh Duhamel: "That's why you should consider that scene with Tyrese washing Optimus shirtless."

Michael Bay: "I know, I know. The rest of the movie with her is not about sexy."

Were there any injuries from running?

Kevin Dunn: "Michael wanted to get this long shot of coming around and seeing Sam and running, and then getting this big beefo guy special agent tackling me and throwing me to the ground. So he talked me into it and the whole secret was that I had to get my feet to land. We did it quite a few times."

Michael Bay: "We did it three times."

Kevin Dunn: "The last time I just didn't get my feet down."

Michael Bay: "That's the take we used."

Kevin Dunn: "You'll see that, and it was his shoulder and my sciatic nerve in the sand met at the same time. I missed Tyrese's party."

Tyrese Gibson: "We were sad about that. I sprained my left pinky toe."

Ramon Rodriguez: "I popped this shoulder, which was a lot of fun on the Devastator scene. Oh yeah, bro."

Michael Bay: "You didn't tell me that."

Ramon Rodriguez: "Well, I didn't want to get you worried."

Michael Bay: "You wanna sue me?"

Ramon Rodriguez: "No. So yeah, we were shooting the Devastator scene where he's sucking all the sand and I had to hold on to this pole. Michael Bay thought it would be a really great idea to bring out two fans that blow 100 miles per hour each and put them right in front of my face. So I had sand, soot, dirt blowing in my face and I had two guys behind me with wires attached to my ankles pulling me. Not enough yet, we need cars flipping over my head so we brought two cars and he literally had them attached to a hydraulic crane flipped inches above my head. So the guys are yanking on the cables on my ankles and yeah, on one of the takes my shoulder popped out. We continued rolling because you can use the shot."

Michael Bay: "That was the shot we used."

Ramon Rodriguez: "That was probably the shot you used, and thank you, Mike."

Was it easier or harder this time to work with machines that weren't always there?

Megan Fox: "It was definitely easier because we've seen them at this point. We've seen Optimus and we've heard his voice and we know how he moves. It's the same with all the robots. And once you're able to visualize something's presence, it's a lot easier to sort of fake interact with it. I think those scenes are some of the easiest scenes to shoot. I enjoy them because we've gotten good at being able to synchronize and pick an eye line. You basically scream your dialogue at it and you avoid the area where you know it is. I enjoy those scenes. We end up usually doing a ton of takes because ILM, it needs to be specific. The light needs to be right and you need to be able to add it in and make it look like the way that they do. But it wasn't that difficult this time around."

The shot from the aircraft, is that stock footage or were you allowed to go on the aircraft?

Michael Bay: "In terms of stock footage, I don't like using it so all that stuff was shot by us. We had incredible access from the military, which is very rare. All those planes, that's us shooting it. They flew a hundred feet over our set at a time. There were six F-16s out doing a mission and we timed their mission for when we wanted them to come over our set four times. We were setting off live explosions down below. We timed it with them."

After making a movie like this where technology is causing so many problems, do you think twice about the technology you use in your own life: Twitter, your laptop, anything like that?

Michael Bay: "I don't know what Twitter is."

Megan Fox: "Neither do I, by the way. I don't have a Twitter page."

Tyrese Gibson: "I love Twitter."

Megan Fox: "He's the only one that has a Twitter."

Tyrese Gibson: "I took the fans on a world tour to all six, seven countries we went to, took pictures of all the historical places in Rome and Amsterdam and I took all of them on tour with me. I told them, 'Pull out your passports, I'm taking you on tour with Twitter.' I love it."

What do you love about it?

Tyrese Gibson: "It's the instant gratification of posting a picture of us just hanging out somewhere or just doing something or all of these different moments throughout these countries. The fans are like, 'Whoa!' They get to see these images and things that they wouldn't be able to see unless you saved it on your Twitter. So I love it."

Can you talk about your decision to use President Obama's name instead of some fictional presidential name, especially in light of his National Security Advisor [in the film] being kind of stupid?

Michael Bay: "Yeah. I wasn't really putting that… Remember, it is summer fun, by the way. Secondly, the Obama thing came about because I was walking in a Vegas airport and he was walking by himself, carrying his bag and his hanging bag over his shoulder. This was after I'd just seen him in the beginning of his campaign and we were walking side by side. I said, 'Hey, I saw you the other night and I liked what you had to say the other night. I really like hearing your stuff.' I introduced myself and he said, 'What do you do?' 'I'm a director.' He said, 'What movies?' I said, 'Oh, these movies…' He said, 'Oh, you're a big ass director. I've seen a bunch of your movies.' So that's why I decided to put him in."

Josh Duhamel: "Did he really say 'big ass director'?"

Michael Bay: "Yeah, he really did."

Tyrese Gibson: "Josh is very involved in politics, by the way. All the time we were filming, he did not miss one speech, the polls, anything. We had so many conversations in the car on the way to the set about the whole campaign. I learned a lot, Josh. You're the greatest."

Josh Duhamel: "That's what I'm there for. I was just worried after throwing him off the plane, I might get audited."

When you were off the set what did you do to relax? Can you talk about staying in shape for the role?

Megan Fox: "I know in New Mexico I think what all of us did to relax after a hard day of work was go drink at Chili's."

Michael Bay: "It's the only restaurant there."

Megan Fox: "We drank a lot. Then to stay in shape, I didn't find the time or I didn't have the motivation to work out after we shot a 16 hour day. So whatever happened to me at work…"

Michael Bay: "We don't shoot 16s. We shoot 12s."

Megan Fox: "Mike, no. That's not possible. Every day…"

Michael Bay: "We do 12. We shoot 12s."

Megan Fox: "Okay, we shoot 12 hour days. Well, after 12 hours I was too tired to work out so I didn't really maintain much."

Michael Bay: "Days are physical."

Megan Fox: "How do you do it, Josh Duhamel? You specimen of a human being."

Josh Duhamel: "Well, Megan. Honestly, you're out there literally sweatin' all day long and you don't have a lot of energy."

Michael Bay: "Running in the sand too."

Josh Duhamel: "Yeah, running in the sand. Tyrese and I worked out a little bit."

Megan Fox: "Together?"

Josh Duhamel: "It was more of a personal competition. Yeah, he would spot me and I would spot him. What's the big deal?"

Tyrese Gibson: "That don't sound too good."

Josh Duhamel: "Honestly, before we started the first one, I remember Michael told me, 'Come ready. Be in shape, I demand a lot of my male actors especially in these movies.' So I did. I just tried to be as strong and ready to go as I could."

Tyrese Gibson: "We worked out twice a day though. We worked out before we went to the set, and after the set we would come and get our five miles in. Have you ever done five miles? Did you do maybe three?"

Josh Duhamel: "I didn't run five miles."

Tyrese Gibson: "You used to run with us. Three? Two?"

Josh Duhamel: "I don't know. It doesn't matter."

You incorporated Shia's hand injury into the film. How did that affect everyone on the project when that happened?

Michael Bay: "Well, I actually read it on CNN online and I'm like, 'This can't be true.' I called my line producer, Ian Bryce, and he goes, 'It's true.' And I'm like, 'Oh, my god.' He goes, 'Let's shut down.' I'm like, 'We can't shut down.' Because when you've got a train going, it's so expensive to shut a picture like this down. We had an action scene in the library that day we were shooting, Monday. I said, 'Let's just go for it. Let's just not stop. Let's use Vlad, his stuntman, and we'll try to cover as much stuff as we can.'"

"Then on Tuesday we shut down and we had to mix and match everything, pulling from different scenes we could shoot without him. We didn't know how long he was going to be down. And immediately I had them find the best people in the world to make a special cast that had never been made with the Kevlar fingers, very thin so you could photograph it because the problem was if he were to jam his fingers, he could lose his fingers forever. So we had some experts of the world kind of come up with this design. We were very lucky because we had shot a lot of the beginning of the movie and so we were right at a turning point were we could kind of…"

Megan Fox: "Did it set things back?"

Michael Bay: "We were very lucky."

Megan Fox: "Everyone is also very lucky for Shia's level of commitment to this movie because he showed up with his injury and acted as though he didn't have an injury, and still went balls to the wall and completely committed and did things that were not safe for him to do. But he wanted this movie to be as real as possible. So I think that helped everyone out a lot."

Michael Bay: "Yeah, we'd have arguments. He would take his cast off and I said, 'Put your cast on.' He said, 'No. I'm fine.' I said, 'Put your cast back on.' We were just trying to protect the hand."

Josh Duhamel: "Remember when he cut his eye and he wanted to come back to work that day."

Michael Bay: "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."

Would you want to work with the Department of Defense again?

Josh Duhamel: "I would. I love it. They were great to work with. I think that's a question, Michael has a great relationship with them. I think that's why."

Michael Bay: "I would only do it if I could control an aircraft carrier."

Kevin Dunn: "Yeah, you get so much information and they're so ready to tell you about everything that they're doing. I think I was talking to a tank commander. It's just great. You just learn so much about what goes into everything these people do."

Michael Bay: "They are a special breed. They're very impressive. They really are."

Tyrese Gibson: "The aircraft carrier stuff was one of a kind. Gettin' there was very unsafe but yet safe and leaving was the same thing. But I mean, we had a big party on the boat, with 5,600 people in the middle of the water on this boat."

Michael Bay: "What Tyrese is saying, it's not unsafe, it's just when they brief you, like a flight attendant would say, 'Okay, these are the doors. Exit on your right…' Whatever. They go, 'Okay, if we have a water landing and I'm dead someone needs to pull this cord right here." It's one of those briefings. It's just down to the point. 'And if you inflate your vest, you will die.'"

What are you putting on the DVD or Blu-ray?

Michael Bay: "This one is done by Ridley Scott's DVD guy who's great, so we're going to have a lot of stuff on this."

And the IMAX stuff?

Michael Bay: "We're going to do a special IMAX skew where it'll open up for those scenes. You can see top to bottom. I'm very curious to see it because I have not seen it. I didn't want to see it during the process because I wanted to be surprised in the theater."

When will you start thinking about Transformers 3?

Michael Bay: "I told everyone that I'm definitely going to do another movie before I do this movie because it's just thinking of robots for three and a half years, it's enough right now."

You keep saying you'll do a smaller Pulp Fiction-esque movie.

Michael Bay: "Well, I keep trying to do it, but Transformers came about and then another Transformers so now it's time to do something different. I'm excited to have this one done. Literally finished it last week. Last week, that's when I finished this. So I came back from Japan and Korea, came back to the States, they all went on and I finished the last bit of the movie."

Who do you play in Jonah Hex?

Megan Fox: "I think they're naming her Leila now. She's sort of a twisted love interest to Brolin's character, to Jonah. She's a prostitute that he goes to see often."

So it's another sexy role?

Megan Fox: "No, it's actually not sexy. It's pretty serious. It's the most serious thing I've done so far."

Have you been offered Lara Croft?

Megan Fox: "No. That's a complete rumor. I haven't been offered that. No one has even spoken to me about doing that yet."

Would you do it?

Megan Fox: "I think that's a role that Angelina Jolie mastered and I would never attempt to take that over from her."

Have you seen Jennifer's Body yet?

Megan Fox: "I have seen it and I'm actually really happy with it."

How did it turn out compared to what you thought it would?


 Megan Fox: "Diablo [Cody] is so wicked and funny, it's hard to really make a film that lives up to her script, but I think that Karyn [Kusama] did a pretty good job. I think it's one of the most interesting movies that's coming out this year for sure."

Do you get to do straight up comedy in it?

Megan Fox: "It's off-beat comedy. It's inappropriate comedy which I find to be the funniest, the most funny of comedy."