In Venom: The Last Dance, Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor both make their Sony-verse debut – though, this is neither actor's first rodeo.
Temple has a role in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises as a character named Jen, a friend of Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle, while Ejiofor plays Baron Mordo in the MCU. When 12DOVE met with Temple and Ejiofor in London to talk about The Last Dance, we asked how the Venom threequel compares to their previous superhero work.
"For me, it was a world of difference," Temple tells us. "I got to have 10 amazing days on The Dark Knight Rises with the incredible people that made that trilogy. But again, in the final cut, I mean, sneeze and you'll miss me. It was extraordinary, and I'm not saying anything but beautiful, I loved it. But this time, it felt like it was a real introduction into what it is to be a part of one of these movies, because I got to see so many different sets, and I got to meet different characters.
"I worked with a lot of tennis balls, which I hadn't done before," she continues. "But you also see the attention to detail that goes into some of the places that I got to walk into, like the science lab, and how certain things genuinely work, and that when they blow things up, they actually blow things up, and it was kind of mind-blowing. But at the same time, getting to have the intimate relationships, getting to do these really human scenes with [Ejiofor] and and Clark [Backo], and getting to find the stuff that I'm more used to in front of the camera, and have it be combined with these larger than life things, it was really amazing."
Temple plays Dr. Payne in the film, a dedicated scientist living out her late brother's dream, while Ejiofor is Rex Strickland, a no nonsense military man.
"The film is wild – it's sort of bonkers," says Ejiofor. "And that was great. And then in the center of that, or wherever we sit in that, are these grounded dynamics, some of them, within the framework of aliens and all of the stuff that's going on. It definitely felt like there was something interesting and really grounded about that. And then it's so fun to watch and exhilarating to watch, and then it's also quite emotional, but in a very human way. I think the film does end up talking about friendship in a really interesting way. And so, there were just a lot of things that I thought were really interesting and unique about it."
Venom: The Last Dance is in theaters this October 25. While you wait, check out our guides to all the upcoming superhero movies and how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order. You can also see what director Kelly Marcel had to say about introducing Knull, and why he's like Thanos.
