The Giant Lizard Himself
As promised, Godzilla was to be found in the lounge on the street level of the Plaza Hotel, looking tanned and relaxed, if a bit weary at the end of a week of interviews promoting his most recent film.
Throughout our conversation he picked at a light lunch of avocado, an egg white omelet, locally sourced greens, and an array of regional cheeses. He drank gin – Bombay – and tonics, but not to excess, and switching over to sparkling water halfway through the interview. He wore sunglasses, a casual top, shorts and sandals, no jewelry, and had a scarf carelessly tossed across his neck – “I have a bit of a cold,” the monstrous beast explained. Sniffles or not, he was charm itself as we got down to the interview.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: The movie has been very well-received.
Godzilla: You’re too kind.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: I think a lot of your fans are wondering how you prepared for the role.
Godzilla: You mean physically? As an artist? On the business side?
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Oh, all three.
Godzilla: Well, these days most stars preparing for a movie where there’s going to be a lot of physicality, bared chests and what not, go through a rigorous training schedule. We wanted to show that I had lost nothing since the last movie in the franchise, so the workouts were twice as hard. Lot of running, a lot of time in the weight room. Diet is important; I wanted to bulk up, but keep my body fat down. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that much.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: You looked great.
Godzilla: Then it was worth the effort. Now, artistically, this time through I had to fight for script approval. Once the word got out that we were going into production again, we got a lot of script treatments that I felt, frankly, didn’t do the character justice.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Can you share some of that?
Godzilla: Oh, let’s just say the writing was lazy. Whenever they didn’t know where to take the story, they would just have me – well, the character – knock over another building or two with a casual swing of my mighty tail.
Man, if I had a nickel for each time I’ve heard the line ‘a casual swing of his mighty tail,’ I’d be out of the movies entirely and retired on a desert island somewhere. There’s just something about a Godzilla movie that brings out the hack in writers. You see, we were trying to elevate the story and bring out its literary qualities.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Well, I think the final product shows that you succeeded. Artistically, how do you approach a scene?
Godzilla: I don’t know if you’ve been around the movie business, but there is an awful lot of waiting around while they set up the lighting and what not.
It takes unusual presence of mind in the middle of all that technical claptrap to reach down inside and find the human – well, not human, ‘gargantuan lizard thing’ is more like it I suppose – to find that gargantuan lizard thing motivation. It takes it out of a fellow. The audience is caught up in the special effects, without realizing what a toll these scenes take on the actor.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Some of our readers have expressed a concern over all the humans you scoop up from the street and gobble down.
Godzilla: I’m surprised to hear you say that. That’s the first I’ve heard of it. What’s their objection?
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Well, it just seems so indiscriminate.
Godzilla: (leaning forward, very serious) Indiscriminate is about the last thing I’d call those scenes. It was very important to me that all those people were ethically raised, free range and what not. I don’t want anyone to have any worries on that account. To think I would just scoop up people and eat them at random! Please! This is 2019.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: What now for Godzilla?
Godzilla: Well, once the promotional tour is over, it will be home to Mrs. Godzilla for some R&R. I’m not the spring chicken I was when the franchise started 75 years ago. Though I’m sure that I’ll be ready for the next movie once I see the length of the little lady’s ‘honey do’ list.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: You mention Mrs. Godzilla, does she miss her time on the screen when she was the darling of the movie monsters?
Godzilla: If she does, I haven’t heard of it. It’s awfully hard on a marriage when you’re both pursuing a career, gigantic lizard monster or not.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Can you tell us of your next project?
Godzilla: Well, I’d like to branch out. These monster movie franchises pay the bills, but the problem is that you get typecast. From the moment you first walk down a city street, shooting flame from your mouth and toppling skyscrapers, well, all of a sudden that they only thing that some of these directors can see you do.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Branch out, you say, into what?
Godzilla: Oh, light comedy, that Noel Coward kind of thing. I never really have paid my dues on Broadway and I have a pleasant baritone (he demonstrates, accidentally scorching the side of the Chrysler Building).
I like to surprise people. I do a certain amount of improv – well, a lot of actors do in Hollywood, it’s a way of keeping your artistic sensibilities sharp – and a certain amount of experimental theater. Let’s just say that it’s one thing to set Macbeth in a modern setting – say, for instance, Al Capone’s Chicago in the 1930s – it’s an entirely other thing to cast Godzilla as Macbeth himself. Like I say, you have to keep your audience on its toes, keep playing with its expectations.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: We have a number of other questions…
Godzilla: Gotta stop you right there. I’m due for a photo shoot uptown and I need to run, You got the bill, right? Send my regards to all your readers, and tell ‘em to keep coming to the movies, and to check my website for any other events coming up. I think I’m scheduled to destroy a few malls in the Midwest before the summer is out.
Movie Monster News Today Magazine: Just a few more questions…
Godzilla: Toodle-loo now, it’s been great.
And then he was off, the monster movie movie star monster par excellence, walking with a certain confident bounce expressive of a monster at the top of his game, destroying buildings here and there with a casual swipe of his mighty tail.
