How he was offered the role in Prometheis:
It was a phone call from Ridley Scott. I’d worked with him before. He’d called my agent and said, “Idris, can I get on the phone with you?” And I said yes, of course, and we spoke about it very quickly. And he said, “I’d love you to do it,” and that was it.
On Ridley Scott as a director:
He has a flair for making the unrealistic seem realistic. He’s kind of like a painter. If he’s painting a lake, he’s gonna spend time adding the layers to make the water look like it’s shimmering. What he does actually is tell you exactly how he’s going to edit you into the film. So you get a sense of where your role [is], how it should work, what kind of dynamic it wants.
On the connection between Prometheus and alien:
Actually, I think there’s a tendency to lean away from the prequel scenario, because this film is epic on its own. As the title “Prometheus” suggests, it has a history that is slightly disconnected from just aliens and spaceships, so to speak. I think what’s exciting is that we know the director made “Alien”—and he’s making this.
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