Acting is hard, but acting with a mask on for much of your performance is even harder. Just ask Kane Hodder from the Friday the 13th movies or Tom Hardy, who played the masked Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. The actor Florian Munteanu, who stars as Krieg in Eli Roth’s sci-fi romp Borderlands, had to act in a mask the entire time, yet still managed to find the essence of his character that made him so appealing in the game.
In an interview with Tech Reader, Munteanu spoke about the challenges of bringing the game to life in the movie and how playing an intimidating brute brought out a hidden comedic side audiences haven’t seen before.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tech Reader: When you’re dealing with characters, you look for the specific details and things that make them click. With Krieg, it’s the mask. That’s what makes him who he is. Putting on the mask, how did it help you get into the character’s mind and understand what he wants?
Florian Munteanu: I mean, the mask is part of the character. I kept telling everyone just because you have a mask on doesn’t mean you’re safe from not trying to act to the fullest of your abilities. The facial expressions and everything that goes with it — the eye acting, the body language — have to be on point even though you are wearing a mask. That’s how you make the mask your own. That’s how the mask becomes your face.
Preparing for the movie was very easy for me because I was very familiar with the games and the character. Krieg is actually my favorite character, so I knew basically everything about him. The physical preparation for the role was tough, but it was a lot of fun immersing myself in it all.
I’m going to ask the obvious question about the challenges of acting with a mask on. It’s almost like another art form. What were the challenges you ran into with [the mask] on? As you said, it’s more difficult to convey emotions and expressions.
Munteanu: I mean, I’m a huge comic book fan, so if it comes to comic books, my favorite character probably would be Bane. I was trying to find a character with similarities to Krieg, and obviously [because of the mask], it’s Bane. I was digging into what Tom Hardy did with him in The Dark Knight Rises, trying to see what kind of challenging things he was facing. The main problem he had was clear vision. Every time you have something on your face, it bothers you, especially when fighting.
I know that Krieg is there primarily for fighting scenes. When I was filming, I had to deal with blurry vision because the mask was moving at all times. The goal, when it comes to fights in a movie, is to not hit the people in front of you. It’s very important. [laughs] That was the most challenging part. Also, it was new for me. I never wear a mask, and I would never wear a mask when I was fighting. I tried to train with the mask a couple of weeks prior to us coming into the shoot, and I think we made it work. We pushed through it.
You’ve definitely added some more comedy into his role. You’ve played Drago and Razor Fist, but this is arguably your funniest role to date. Did you look forward to the challenge of working on your comedy?
Munteanu: 100%. I feel like Krieg is a protagonist for once. It’s fun being the bad guy. I knew that Krieg had that funny side to him because of his split personality, and the way he talks. I saw that as a huge opportunity for myself to, like you said, do something different than what I did in the past with my other roles.
You have this buddy cop chemistry with Ariana (Greenblatt)’s character, Tiny Tina. Take me through that relationship.
Munteanu: If you have a bond like that in a movie, you try to, as actors, connect as good as possible in real life to create real chemistry on screen. Ariana made it very easy for me. She’s probably the most talented young woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life. She made it very easy for me to like her. She made it very easy for me to work with her.
I was learning a lot from her, not only when it comes to the craft of acting, but how I approach different scenes, how to get loose, and how to have more fun with it. We know how strong the bond is between Krieg and Tiny Tina in the games … The fans are expecting to see that fun bond. Once again, I think we nailed it because she made it so much easier for me, and I hope I did the same for her.
There’s a lot of pressure to honor the games. At the end of the day, you have to give your own interpretation. Did that change your process, knowing you had to balance the game with your own style?
Munteanu: A little bit, yeah. It’s almost impossible to create the same version of the game character and adapt it to the movie character because you don’t have endless hours to unfold each individual storyline. A movie is way quicker. We basically only have two hours to tell it, and that means you need to speed things up. If you speed things up, you have to get rid of some of the details that maybe a lot of gamers and fans love about the character.
In the past, we had so many movies try to adapt video games. They were not always successful because it was so challenging. There’s a thin line between what you want to lift from the game and what stuff you have to bring to the table to make this work in a movie. I think we did a great job, but at the end of the day, the fans have to decide. I’m really curious to see what the response will be.
Borderlands is now in theaters.
