At CinemaCon 2019, JoBlo had the chance to talk to Natalia Reyes, Mackenzie Davis and Gabriel Luna about Terminator: Dark Fate.
Terminator: Dark Fate has been described as being a torch pass from Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor) to Natalia Reyes (Dani Ramos) and like-wise from Arnold Schwarzenegger (T-800) to Mackenzie Davis (Grace).
Natalia Reyes – Dani Ramos (The Target)
When quizzed by JoBlo about being the new Sarah Connor; Natalia gave a very humble answer…
“Oh my god, I hope Linda is not hearing you. No, she’s Sarah Connor and she will always be this badass amazing woman. I admire her so much, like since the first time I saw her, I’m like ‘I cannot believe Linda Hamilton is here with me’. I was a big fan, but also just working with her and having like six months sharing life with her- I love her more than ever, and I admire her more than I did before. I don’t think I’m the new Sarah Connor, I will say I’m Dani Ramos; this is a new character but you know I’m being supported by her [Linda], Mackenzie Davis (Grace). Grace and Sarah they are helping Dani to escape from this crazy new Terminator, so we are being chased, this is like a crazy road-trip, a big journey between the three of us and it’s really exciting. I mean, I can’t wait to see it.”
Natalia Reyes
JoBlo then asked what it was like to work with Arnold “The original Terminator”.
“It’s crazy, I cannot believe it yet, it’s like Arnold, you’ve always seen him on a big screen, like you know, he’s always there but seems so far and suddenly he was right here, and he was acting with me and I was looking into his eyes and I was like ‘this is surreal this is Arnold Schwarzenegger and I’m acting with him and he’s looking at me and were just doing a movie together’. So it was really exciting, he’s a really smart guy we talked for a long time. He’s really worried about the environment and I am, so we shared that part of our lives, and you know, it was really exciting and I think, I hope fans would also love this new Terminator. I mean it’s different, it’s been 35 years since the first one, so it’s different, it’s set in the present day but I think it has the soul, core and the essence of that Terminator that they love.”
Natalia Reyes
Mackenzie Davis – Grace (Protector)
Next up, Mackenzie Davis was asked what it was like to receive the call to be in a Terminator movie…
“Ah… wild! I mean, it wasn’t out the blue- because I had auditioned a bunch for it, so I had that to prepare me but um, you know, it’s a wild thing to step into. It’s really iconic, it’s bigger than anything I’ve done before and yeah it felt like sort a shift.”
Mackenzie Davis
JoBlo: Were you a fan coming into it, or was it something you kinda had to catch up on?
“I hadn’t seen any Terminator movies until about 3 months before I auditioned for it, which had no correlation to the audition. I didn’t even know I was going to be auditioning for it I felt like I had this dearth in my movie-watching history and I wanted to see what the first two Terminator movies were about and I was just blown away by Linda’s character and this whole arc of this woman sort of becoming this whole other self and starting in this really neat place and becoming this warrior, I thought it was so rad and continues to be so radical. So yeah, that got me really excited and then an audition came up and I was like, oh I know this.”
Mackenzie Davis
JoBlo: So your character is steeped in mystery we don’t know a whole lot about her…
(laughs) “I know! It’s very hard to talk about…”
Mackenzie Davis
..but we’ve seen you and you look super badass, so..
Yeah, that’s great.
Mackenzie Davis
… it looks like you trained pretty hard for this. Tell me about that, what was that like?
“It was a lot, I trained for about three months before we started; I was training six days a week. Every single, for an hour- hour and half a day, and doing military training as well, then once we started filming I was doing five days a week before work, you know getting up at 3:30 in the morning, starting to train at four, four to five then going to make-up. It was really… I was tired for six months. I was really tired. But it was cool! I’d never seen my body do that; it was nice to have someone to force you to do that- because I certainly do not possess that will power and I was er, happy when it ended.”
Mackenzie Davis
JoBlo: “What was it like working with Linda Hamilton, that had to be… ?”
“That was amazing, she’s so… have you talked to her?”
Mackenzie Davis
JoBlo: I haven’t talked to her yet but…
“She’s so cool. She’s just such a bad Boss, she’s so cool. She’s very intimidating when you first meet her just because she’s so self possessed and has like excellent posture, and then the more you get to know her she’s just the most cuddliest, loveliest woman in the world. So it was a joy, I worked with her every day for six months.”
Mackenzie Davis
Gabriel Luna – The New Terminator (Villain)
Finally Gabriel Luna talks about being the new machine!
JoBlo: So, you’re new to the Terminator franchise, tell me how this happened; how did you get in there?
“Well, I got a call last,- not this past December but the previous, saying they wanted me to come in for Tim Miller. I came in and they gave me a scene from Collateral – which is really really interesting and I knew it was the Terminator film but there were no details, there was no script, there was nothing other than this one scene from Collateral between, you know, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, and I’m reading the part of ‘Assassin’. I think to myself: ‘How many assassins are in a Terminator movie?’. So I get very excited because this is the first moment where I’ve kinda realised that they are eyeing me to play Terminator, and they told me all kinds of different stories, made of all kinds of… to throw me off you know, in terms of the script and what it was. But yeah, three and a half months later after a few meetings with Tim and stunt assessments and screen tests, everything else; Jim finally gave us his go-ahead, so yeah, it was the longest process I’ve ever went to without reading a word of the script… but when it’s a Terminator picture, you know, hey, you just go- yeah, stay the course.”
Gabriel Luna
JoBlo: What can you tell us about the character itself, I mean you’re kinda filling the villain role into the Terminator franchise… ?
“Villain? Well, maybe. Antagonist, yeah. My running line is: I’m only as bad as your refrigerator or your toaster, or whatever; anything else fulfilling its duty, its purpose but yeah, it’s just, I wanted to… I wanted the technology to be so advanced that you know, he’s, it’s almost more human than human. To have successfully evolved to a point where there’s much more fluidity between being a machine and then being a human.”
Gabriel Luna
JoBlo: When you were growing up- were you a big fan of the Terminator films coming in?
“Oh yeah. We all were weren’t we?! You know, I’ve only seen the first two, I just…”
Gabriel Luna
JoBlo: They’re the only ones you need to see!
“That’s even more true now- Jim having… his goal is just to make the true sequel, and after Arnold and I saw the early cut I was so excited, I was so happy and I think we achieved that.”
Gabriel Luna
Source: JoBlo.com (interviews transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com)
