ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There are stories of him asking you how you would pull off certain shots, or certain sequences.
MICHAEL BAY: What was fun working with him, we would sit in my war room and [I'd say], ''Oh, Steven, I got this scene and I want to do it like this and shoot like that.'' And he knows what I'm talking about. He goes, ''Oh, what if you do that?'' But you can see when I'm showing him stuff that his gears are ticking for Indiana Jones 4. [Chuckles] You can see that he's a competitive director.
I'm told he worked a lot with the Transformers' screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to bring a certain innocent tone to the film. The motto seems to have been, ''It's about a boy and his car.''
Yeah. That was the hook to the movie. But I added a stronger military thing at the beginning to make it more, I guess, badass, to make the stakes higher. But originally the tone was very suburbia. We kind of changed that and made it edgier. I like the idea of the suburbia. I specifically shot this a little bit more suburbia, meaning, like, I would never put actors at a Burger King, but it's what people do, you know what I mean? Or in [lead character Sam Witwicky's suburban] house. It's not a sexy house. But it's identifiable, and more accessible.
Was there a particular demographic that you thought would be your target audience?
I just thought it would be from kids to, you know, to 20-something whatever. The first day on the set I'm working with all these guys in the military and I was apologizing for the movie. Forty-something guys. I was like, ''Okay guys, I know this sounds really stupid, but there's a 40-foot-tall robot over here and it's going to flip and land right here.'' They're like, ''Which robot? Is this Starscream?'' I'm like, how do these guys know that? And I realized, oh my God, it's a lot older than I thought.
What is your work ethic with actors? What do you want and expect out of them when you are on the set?
I want people to bring their A game. There are some directors that sit in a chair. They sit in their trailer. I am always on the set. I do 12-hour days, that's it, and I don't go in overtime. And I shoot very fast. When I am doing action I'm like your worst nightmare basketball coach. I am there with my kneepads on, right next to you, and I'm there because I'm trying to instill the adrenaline. When they see me intense, I see actors' intensity starting to rise. It's like a game you've got to play. Sometimes you create a bit of chaos. We call it on the set ''Bayos.'' But no, honestly, it's like a manipulation thing.
You made certain changes to the Transformers from the '80s series to update them and make them cinematic — like giving Optimus Prime a long-nose truck cab instead of a flat-front. There was a lot of fan uproar about that. There were even rumors that you got death threats.
No. You get these funny talkbacks, like, ''Damn you, Michael Bay, you wrecked my childhood, Michael Bay. I want to hunt you down.'' I mean, whatever, you know. People are passionate about their childhoods. [Laughs] But honestly, they remember the cartoons greater than what they really are if you look at them. Because they don't stand up at all.
I watched the 1986 Transformers animated movie the night before seeing your film, and it was, um, kinda not so good.
Yeah, I saw 15 minutes of that movie and I wanted to put a gun to my head. ''I can't see this. I have to go into my own head about what this movie [I'm making] is.'' [Laughs] So yeah, you take the heat, but they weren't seeing [the robots] in a 3-D world.
NEXT PAGE: ''I'm pretty content with who I am. I feel like I'm happy in my life. They take cheap shots because people don't really know me. They think [what I do] is not art.''
You Might Also Like
- News Article Michael Bay doing ''Ouija'' movie
- News Article Bay in talks to develop ''Rosemary's Baby'' redo
- NEWS ROUNDUP Writers set for Bay's ''Friday the 13th'' | Mike Bruno
- News Roundup Eva Mendes joins ''Spirit'' cast | Dawnie Walton
