INT: Josh Duhamel

Even
a movie about shape-shifting alien robots needs a little eye candy
for the chicks. Helping fill that role in

Michael

Bay

’s upcoming live-action TRANSFORMERS
movie is Josh Duhamel. Known primarily for his work on the TV
series

Las Vegas

, Duhamel also has a few notable film roles to his credit, including
last year’s Brazilian HOSTEL clone TURISTAS. At the TRANSFORMERS
set visit a few months ago in downtown

L.A.

, Duhamel sat down briefly with a few online journalists to talk
about the much-anticipated film. Check it out.

Josh
Duhamel

What’s
your character’s name?

Captain
William Lennox…I’m part of the regular military. I’m a captain of
special forces in the army.

How
does he get involved in the story?

Well,
it just sort of happens. They’re not expecting it, of course, which
I think is part of the beauty of the script is the fact that it’s
set here, now. It’s current and it deals with something that’s
actually going on. We’re over in

Iraq

coming back from a special ops mission when we first encounter them.
And the reason I guess – I don’t know how much I can tell – but
part of the reason is to take out communications. Yeah, we run
across them just sort of accidentally and from there…we try
everything we have to penetrate or disable them a little bit. We
finally figure something out and we come back here to help. It’s
pretty cool. I’m having so much fun.

Were
you a big fan of the toys?

Yeah.
I look at these things now and I’m like I’m gonna collect all these
little toys. You can see the truck’s going to be a toy.

I
used to be a huge fan of these things when I was a kid. Just to be
out here and just to see how they…just the art alone on the
Transformers and how it’s sort of evolved. Just to be part of it,
it’s definitely a movie about the robots for sure. But I’m stoked to
be able to be on a screen with them. I mean, right here, you can see
(points to the set) you can only imagine what it’s going to look
like when the transformer takes the place of that big pole.

Did
you do any boot camp training?

Yes…I
wouldn’t really call it a boot camp. I heard about military movies
and how they put these guys through the ringer, they try to harden
these pussy actors basically, which I categorize myself as. So I
tried to get in shape for it before I went in. For three or four
weeks, I was trying to get in cardiovascular shape, everything. I
get there and it was more or less an intensive on…at Fort Irwin,
that’s basically the training ground where all the soldiers go from
the army before they head over to Iraq. It was more or less an
intensive learning, the preparation and the way they sort of live
and everything else.

You’re
working with real soldiers in the movie?

Yeah,
those guys are all the real deal, all of them except for Tyrese.
They’re all Navy SEALS except for one of them who was a ranger. You
learn a lot from those guys. You develop a real appreciation for,
these kids are like 17-18 years old, men and women about to go over
to Iraq and that’s real. So it was something that was pretty
valuable to me.

Have
you seen any of your scenes finished with the robots?

I
saw the opening sequence when we were over in White Sands when we
first encounter the Transformers. It was still sort of rudimentary
but it’s pretty amazing, the amount of technology. This is beyond
anything I think they’ve done as far as CGI and making it as
photoreal- – they said this is going to be more photoreal than
anything they’re done yet.

Are
you satisfied with your reactions to the robots?

With
my reactions? I don’t know. We’ll see. That’s my biggest fear is I
just don’t want to suck. Because you never know if what you were
looking at, how tall it was. You don’t even know what it looked like
at the time. They seem satisfied so I guess that’s good enough.

How
much of your stuff is you interacting with invisible robots?

Quite
a bit actually. Quite a bit of it. Everything we did in the
beginning was fighting these things. even though you don’t see them
though, these guys, the explosive teams and everything, they make it
feel like you’re actually in war, only you don’t see what you’re
fighting against. So it felt as if, you know, the bombs are going
off, dust and everything was flying everywhere, so it felt real. We
just looked where it was coming from and stuff like that, so I did
see a little bit of that cut together and it looks pretty wicked.

What
harm’s way has Michael put you in?

The
first few weeks was pretty intense. He goes as hard as any of us so
you can’t really be soft. You just have to be on the set ready to go
whenever. It was 120 degrees out in the desert out there which kind
of made it feel more real. But just mostly a lot of bombs. A lot of
bombs going off in you ear. At one point, (Bay) was like, “Dude,
you’ve got to lower your pitch. Your pitch is too high.” And I was
like, “What do you mean?” and I pulled my thing [ear plug] out
and I realized that that’s what, I was trying to scream over the
top, like give orders over the top of these earplugs. So there was
one day that he was pretty rough on me but otherwise he’s a lot
nicer than his reputation. He really is.

Are
you looking forward to getting back to TV?

We’re
shooting it now. At the same time. We worked last night until like
1:30 and then came here this morning. But it hasn’t been bad. I
thought it was going to be a lot worse because I knew there was
going to be an overlap of about three months. But this three-four
week period now will be the…because we’re working all week on
Vegas and then come here on the weekends. So, but hey, it could be
much worse. I’d much rather have too much work than no work.

Do
you get to work much with Shia?

A
fair amount. Like I said, the first few weeks, he wasn’t there. It
was mostly just the military team. Now that we’re all kind of come
together, we met up at Hoover Dam and a lot of this final battle
stuff is with him. We’re going to work together in sort of, he sort
of takes the thing that he has to and sort of does his heroic thing
here.

What
scene are you shooting today?

Today
is part of the final battle scene. We think that we’ve got them and
the Decepticons deceived us.

Any
talk about sequels?

As
far as I know, yes, but it’s up to them. However they write it
afterwards. Part of the contract was to do two, but as you know,
they can go any way they want in the second one.

Do
you ride in any of the Transformer cars?

You
know what? I actually haven’t ridden in any of them. We do the dune
buggies all the time and I look at them all the time. What are your
favorites of the ones you see here? I like Ironhide. I like the
truck. You should see the Decepticons. They’re really badass. Just
mean. They look- – it’s different from before. I think that the
people who sort of designed them really made it really cool again. I
think people are really going to dig it. I hope.

Questions?
Comments? Manifestos? Send them to me at [email protected].