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Ramon Rodriguez will have bigger role in Transformers3?

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How big will "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" get? The movie was closing in on $400 million on Monday, a number that surprised even some of the people at Paramount Pictures. We've had tons of coverage on the film, which is breaking records at the box office, and we're not done yet. Here's a longer version of the Los Angeles Times Calendar story I have in today's paper on one of the new faces in Hollywood, Ramon Rodriguez, who plays Leo Spitz in the No. 1 movie in America right now. A lot of people are expecting big things from Ramon in the future, including Michael Bay, who hinted to me that the third film in the franchise will have a meatier role for the new cast member.

Ramon Rodriguez in Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

It turns out that filmmaker Michael Bay runs an audition a lot like he makes movies.

Last year, Ramon Rodriguez visited Bay’s Santa Monica offices seeking a key role in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and, instead of a sedate line-reading, the young actor was told to basically run for his life.

“For 90 minutes, he had me jumping, running, diving over the furniture in his office -- that was the audition,” said Rodriguez, who was adept enough to land the role of Shia LaBeouf’s sidekick in the biggest movie of the year. “I was drenched in sweat. He told me, ‘OK, hide behind the desk!’ ‘Now, run over here!’ And man, I was looking in his eyes, and he was enjoying it. He’s got a passion for action. It shows in the movies too.”

Critics may cringe, but audiences are feeling it: “Revenge of the Fallen,” as of Monday, was closing in on $400 million worldwide. That's a staggering number, and the domestic gross, $201 million, fell just short of the five-day record of $203 million set last year by “The Dark Knight.”

It’s been dizzying to watch from a distance, but it’s an especially wild ride for newcomer Rodriguez, whose career surged this summer with the “Transformers” role as well as his work in Tony Scott’s “The Taking of Pelham 123,” which put him side by side with Denzel Washington and John Travolta.

“I’m coming out of nowhere this summer,” Rodriguez said on recent bright afternoon on a basketball court in Studio City. “At least that’s how it seems to people. It feels that way to me sometimes too. And it’s been a major education.”

For Rodriguez, this summer is the equivalent of a half-court shot that hits nothing but net.

The actor, who grew up on Manhattan’s lower east side but also spent much of his youth in his family’s native Puerto Rico, was a college and prep-school basketball star but didn’t have the height needed to achieve his NBA dream.

After picking up a sports-management degree at New York University, he was working for the New York Knicks in their community relations department but hating it. “You would think I would love it, but working for a team that’s losing is just no fun,” he said. “It was so gray, so dark, there were layoffs and turmoil."

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen cast with Michael Bay

A friend coaxed him to enter a Nike basketball-trick competition and, with the lure of a free pair of sneakers, a disinterested Rodriguez agreed. He ended up winning by spinning a ball, putting it on the tip of a pen and then gripping the pen with his teeth without interrupting the revolving ball.

It was a heck of a trick: It led to the ballplayer joining the Nike freestyle team and a tour of Asia and Europe as a sort of latter-day Harlem Globetrotter. At NBA games, Rodriguez performed in front of stars he had hoped would be his peers.

“They were checking us at halftime, I could see out of the corner of my eye that they were smiling,” he said. “We got paid, we traveled, people cheered. And then there’s another thing: When you’re the halftime show, you never lose.”

His work in Nike commercials gave him a foothold in a new sector: acting. That path became more than a lark in 2005 when Rodriguez had an eye-catching, two-episode guest appearance on “Rescue Me,” FX's firehouse drama, in which he played a young man who had been molested by a priest.

“The firefighters went to the priest and at the end of the story arc, in front of everyone, I kill myself,” Rodriguez said. “I put a gun to my head in the middle of the church. I was finding out what it meant to be an actor.”

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

Rodriguez then immersed himself in acting studies even as he did an eight-episode run on “The Wire” in the role of Renaldo, the dangerous lover of stick-up man Omar Little. Next was Rodriguez’s memorable turn in Alejandro Gomez Monteverde’s “Bella,” the 2006 film that won the people’s choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

That set the stage for “Transformers,” which allowed Rodriguez to get in touch with his youth – he used to watch the cartoon series while munching on sugary cereal. The role of the fast-talking Princeton freshman Leonardo Ponce De Leon Spitz – who is the new college roommate to LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky — makes Rodriguez the comic relief in the film about giant alien robots.

Director Michael Bay has a third "Transformers" film in mind, and if it plays out as he expects, the next installment would have a more substantial role for Rodriguez. The filmmaker, speaking at his office a few weeks before "Revenge of the Fallen" was released, seemed to have some pride of discovery when talking about Rodriguez.

"I've worked with big stars, people like Will Smith, Sean Connery and Bruce Willis, but casting is a weird thing, it takes you places you don’t expect," Bay said. "We went looking for a sidekick in this movie, Shia’s sidekick, and we find this new kid who really pops on screen. I think he’s going to have a real bright career. It’s great to work with big stars, but it’s always fun to discover people."

Bay said the actor is a mix of rough charm and refined intellect.

"He’s got a street edge and a realness to him," said the director, whose past films include "The Rock" and "Bad Boys.” "He’s a New York kid with a street feel to him. He adapted to the actors very well, which isn’t always easy in a big movie, a sequel, where a lot of the cast chemistry has been set already. He’s funny, charming, comes off cool and accessible.”

Rodriguez is eager to diversify his résumé and do arty films and ensemble pieces as well as the huge summer fare. But he said, no matter what comes next, he won’t soon forget this summer.

“It was the full deal: I remember flying to Egypt to climb the Pyramids … and then taking a Blackhawk helicopter to Petra to shoot there,” he said. “We shot on an aircraft carrier. I mean, all of it, it was just mind-blowing. I got my shot and, man, it was a good one.”

-- Geoff Boucher

TechPedition.Com Interviewers ROTF Moviegoers

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Josh Nizzi's story of how he got to work on Transformers ROTF

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ore than meets the eye? The motto of "Transformers," whose sequel, "Revenge of the Fallen," is opening at midnight tonight at both Champaign's Carmike Beverly Cinema and the Goodrich Savoy 16, could also describe Champaign native Josh Nizzi, a 32-year-old freelance artist whose designs of transforming alien robots such as Megatron will grace big screens around the world.

Nizzi, who now lives in Cary, N.C., tapped into a more typical machine to tell The News-Gazette how he broke into film, and how a Transformer goes from sketch to screen.
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What is your connection to the Champaign area?

Josh Nizzi: My parents (Patrick and Andrea Nizzi) live there, I was born there, went to the (University of Illinois), my first job out of college was at Volition, I met my wife at Vineyard Church, and had two of our three kids at Carle.

How did you first get involved in "Transformers?"

JN: I have been a fan of Transformers since I was a kid. After seeing the first movie, I loved how the robots were brought to life and wanted to work on the sequel. But breaking into any industry is hard, especially films – there is like no information on the Web about how to do it. So I decided my best bet was to design a robot that would likely be in the sequel and put it on the Web. I figured that Devastator would probably be in the next film so I designed one of the robots that combines to create him – Long Haul. I put the image on the Web and got a lot of nice fan feedback.

Freelance artist Josh Nizzi, a Champaign native and University of Illinois graduate who now lives in Cary, N.C., is the designer behind several of the robots featured in 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.'

Then a few months later, I got an e-mail from the design director of boys' toys at Hasbro, Aaron Archer, asking if I wanted to do concepts for "Transformers 2." After dancing around the house a bit and talking with my wife, I signed on. Soon after that, (film director) Michael Bay's studio hired me on and I was making trips to L.A. to work on site as well as remotely.

N-G: What are the robots you designed and what was your design process like?

JN: The robots I'm primarily responsible for are Megatron, Jetfire, Power Up Optimus, and Long Haul.

The design process usually goes something like this:

– Brainstorming/rough sketches.

– Refine a few roughs that are most promising.

– Pick one and do a finished painting.

– Do a rear view.

– Do a close-up of the face.

Depending on how fleshed out a character is in the director or production designer's mind, this process can be quick or there can be a lot of iterations. For example, Long Haul, the design I did before I was hired was the first design approved for "Revenge of the Fallen"; there were no iterations at all. Megatron had many iterations because Michael was still figuring out what to do with the character as I was working on him.

N-G: What kinds of machines can the robots you designed morph into?

JN: Megatron transforms into a Cybertronian tank. Long Haul is a giant dump truck. Jetfire is an SR-71 ("Blackbird" reconnaissance aircraft). What happens with Optimus is one of the big plot points in the movie, so I don't want to give that away.

N-G: Have you worked on other movies, and if so, what have you done?

JN: I've worked on "G.I. Joe," "Robot Taekwon V," "Tarzan" and other movies that don't have titles yet. But I also do a lot of work in other entertainment such as video games, comics, toys and theme parks.

N-G: How did you get into this field?

JN: I've always loved drawing. My parents did a great job of nurturing my interests and talents. I went to the U of I and got a degree in graphic design. After college, I got a job at Volition and worked on a number of games there. I went to work at Day 1 Studios in Chicago before going freelance and expanding into films and other areas besides video games.

N-G: Have you seen the final cut of the new "Transformers" movie yet? How does it compare to the first film?

JN: I have not seen the final cut. I'm probably more excited than anybody to see it, though. From what I have seen, it looks like the movie is going to be a lot like the first one, but with more of everything – and I like more.

Radio Interview Of Transformers ROTF ILM Animator Shawn Kelly

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Mark Ryan Interviewed on MN Talk Radio

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Michael Bay Blog Update: Wall Street Journal Interview

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This coming weekend could make Hollywood history for Michael Bay, the movie director behind the big-budget epics “Armageddon” and “Pearl Harbor.” His latest release, the $200 million action-adventure movie “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” is poised to possibly become the biggest opening in Hollywood history, with estimates that it could gross more than $200 million by Sunday’s end—rivaling the record-shattering totals for last summer’s “The Dark Knight.” But the 44-year-old director, who has a predilection for massive budgets and pyrotechnic explosions, has already set his sights on a radically new goal: making an art film.

The Wall Street Journal: This film features even more talking robots—based on the Hasbro toy line—than the first “Transformers.” Why add in more robots rather than humans?

Mr. Bay: That’s what fans wanted. The first film was really about us setting up the situation, and this movie is about us discovering what we could do better with that situation, how to make this most out of these special effects and these characters.

Did Hasbro force you to conform the aesthetics of the robots to match the style of its toy line? Did you have to make any compromises on characters for the sake of promoting Hasbro’s stable of pre-existing Transformers characters?

Not at all. I told [Hasbro] that I was going to do my own thing, and they really let me go off on the designs. They gave me carte blanche—it was pretty phenomenal. But I still listened to people who were in that world when they asked things like, ‘Can we make Optimus’s ears a little longer so he appears more in character?’ That’s easy to do. And a lot of the artists and people that we hired were fans of Transformers growing up, so having so many fans working on my crew really kept me on point. There are things that I invented—the creaky geriatric robot that is always grumpy, for example, or the little wheelie guy, he’s not in the Hasbro lore. But kids love that stuff—this little guy as a pet on a chain. They gravitate towards it.

Did you add testicles to the robots, too?

No, those are construction balls.

Uh-huh. So, now that you’ve finished the sequel of “Transformers,” are you ready to direct the third installment of the franchise?

I just want to take some time off. It’s been almost three years that I’ve devoted myself entirely to this world of robots. At some point, enough is enough—and I literally carried this movie on my back. I only finished it in the last week. It was a tough movie for me to finish—especially with the writers strike, the possible SAG strike. At one point, we were the only union movie in America shooting—Hollywood was so messed up from those two events.

So you don’t want to do another sequel?

I don’t know who [would] want to take on my shoes with this franchise. We might just take a year down.

What’s next for you, then?

I’ve been talking to some big actors right now about something that is totally different. A small dark comedy, a true story, with actors just acting, no effects. I’m done with effects movies for now. When you do a movie like “Transformers,” it can feel like you’re doing three movies at once—which is tiring.

It’s interesting that you want to focus on acting. Megan Fox, one of the leads in “Transformers” has criticized your films for being special-effects-driven and not offering so many acting opportunities. Do you agree?

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.” Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did “Transformers”—and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from “Bad Boys.” Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in “Transformers.” I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

With all the recent emphasis on 3D and technology in movies, do you think we’ll see some directors emerge out of the special effects houses?

Mr. Bay: People have come before from the special effects houses and have not done well. People can come from anywhere—but its really about telling stories. Either you’re born to do this or you’re not.

Speaking of effects, What about 3-D? Are you a fan? Will we watch the third “Transformers” movie in three dimensions?

I prefer the flat screen. I’m not jumping to do 3-D at all—it’s a pain in the neck to shoot it and I actually like the flat image. I’ve heard that some people can’t even see 3-D and, moreover, that a major side effect of watching it is feeling exhausted. Can you imagine how you’d feel watching one of my movies in 3-D?

You really shot all those scenes [in ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”] at the real pyramids?

One of the things that I pride myself on is that in situations where people say, “You can’t do that,” somehow I am always able to pull it off. I did it with “Pearl Harbor” and I did it with “Armageddon,” with the space shuttle, and luckily [Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities] Dr. Zahi Hawass, who runs the pyramids, was a fan of the first “Transformers”—so he let us film there, even though we’re the first film to do so in 30 years.

Those pyramids get pretty beat up in the film. Did they crumble during the filming?

The destruction is all effects. We were very, very careful. We didn’t break anything.

Source: WSJ

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