Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci talk Shia

Posted by admin on July 13th, 2008 |

CS: This is your second movie writing for Shia, so were you able to tailor the dialogue more to what he could do as a character or did you want him to do something different than he has in other movies?
Kurtzman: Yeah, certainly we had a great experience with him on “Transformers” and his voice is very very specific. It actually helped us quite a bit in conceiving his character in “Eagle Eye” and that in turn helped us in the conceiving of his character in “Transformers 2″ so we’re now on Movie #3 with Shia, so I think more than any other actor out there, we have his voice in our heads.

CS: Actors like Tom Hanks or Will Smith have a very distinctive thing they do really well, so did you try to switch it up again so people don’t just think “Okay, it’s the same guy from ‘Transformers’ and ‘Disturbia’ again”?
Orci: Definitely both. You know their voice and then you know exactly how to stretch each other. You know how to stretch the character’s voice and in doing so, stretch your writing and your development.
Kurtzman: The other thing that’s exciting about it, too, is that this is really Shia’s first adult role. “Transformers” and “Disturbia” were both playing seventeen to let’s say nineteen years old, and this is first truly adult role. With that comes a whole new set of requirements, and I think people are going to be really happily, I wouldn’t say surprised, but it’s funny, especially with D.J. He created a breakthrough role for Shia when he did “Disturbia” but I think this is the next evolution of that. It just shows how much range Shia has.
Source: Coming Soon.net