Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s guns cover the May issues of Men’s Health and Nylon Guys. He’s promoting Godzilla and (to a lesser degree) his upcoming role as a “miracle” called Quicksilver. Those who watched Cap 2: The Winter Soldier know what I’m talking about. It’s a bit spooky that Evan Peters plays Quicksilver in the next X-Men movie while Aaron has taken up the role for Marvel. The differences between the two actors should be interesting.
The two shoots are very different from each other. Men’s Health is all bulging biceps and tire-bound pushups. Seriously, that magazine loves to show big men doing things with tires. I’m surprised they didn’t make Aaron sit on top of a mountain and gaze off into the distance. Nylon is more of a cutesy shoot with sweaters and puppies. Of course.
Both interviews discuss 23-year-old Aaron’s rise from child actor to indie darling to blockbuster star. Aaaand he talks about his unconventional family life that comes from being married to 46-year-old Sam Taylor-Johnson and parenting two small children. His past several years have seen huge transitions not only in his personal life but professionally as well. Aaron’s gone from Savages and Anna Karenina to a bloated reboot of a Japanese classic movie. Let’s do some excerpts:
His Godzilla character: “He’s in the military and he’s usually away on tour. He’s running away from problems at home. It mirrored what his father did. There’s this acting method, I think it’s Lee Strasberg’s or whatever, where you use a memory from your own life to create an emotion. So if you’re looking up at Godzilla and youre supposed to be scared, you just imagine something from your life that’s scared you I didn’t f—ing do that. It’s f—ing bullsh-t.”
How he chooses projects: “Most people would say ‘Script first.’ Always script, script, script. But, I beg to differ. I think it’s about the filmmaker. I don’t know if I really care so much about the end product anymore.”
On Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch: “They’re from Eastern Europe. They come from a hard life. They’re sort of gypsies and the look out for each other.” He raises a cryptic eyebrow when I ask if his character is one of the good guys.
His youthful rebellion: “It was a lot of crazy sh-t I got up to for a couple years. I was pretty self-destructive at one point. I used to smoke 30 [cigs] a day, used to f—ing drink nonstop. I’ve always been able to be on the f—ing edge — be on the line, but then pull myself back. It was kind of like learning how to pull. It was like, how do you go into a bar and point out the fittest girl and then just go, ‘I’ll have her by the end of the night’? I was at that age where that was kind of — I stopped when I met Sam.”
On having a much older wife: “It doesn’t seem like it. She’s such a young, beautiful soul that you wouldn’t even know.”
On “the challenges of a growing family”: “That’s bullsh-t. They’re not challenges. People are like, ‘Don’t you have to work really hard?’ And I’m like, ‘If you think it’s hard, you must be in a sh-t marriage.’ Everything in my life before them was an escape. I went from one job to the next, film after film, just trying to escape. I grew up working in this industry. I did my first commercial at six. And from about the age of 10, I was doing films. I was a kid, but I was working around adults.”
Switching from indies to blockbusters: “There are some actors that are so conscious, like, ‘I only pick the really quirky weird films ’cause I wanna be looked at as a serious actor. The work is just as interesting as, you know, playing a f—ing crackhead in some rough indie Detroit movie.”
[From Nylon Guys & Men’s Health]
Can you believe Aaron and Sam have been together for five years now? They had kids very quickly. Aaron seems perfectly happy to be a young father of two toddler-aged children. That situation sounds like chaos to many of us, but Aaron makes it sound like a rambunctuous family life is a vacation from his previous adventures. I think Aaron and Sam stand a much greater chance of going the distance than Ashton and Demi ever did. For one thing, neither Ashton nor Demi ever gave up their vanity or need for attention from the outside world. Aaron and Sam seem very low key in comparison.
Now for Aaron’s guns and some cute puppies.
Photos courtesy of Nylon Guys & Men’s Health
More at Cele Bitchy
