(PCM) History and action buffs will want to check into “300: Rise of the Empire,” which has some of the best-ever fighting scenes done on ancient ships — and even though the film opens today in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D, if you have the chance, you’ll want to catch this one in IMAX 3D
“300: Rise of the Empire” pits the Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) against the massive invading Persian forces, ruled by the mortal-turned-god Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), and led by Artemisia (Eva Green), the vengeful commander of the Persian navy. Knowing his only hope of defeating the overwhelming Persian armada will be to unite all of Greece, Themistokles ultimately leads the charge that will change the course of the war.
Reprising their roles from “300,” Lena Headey stars as the Spartan Queen, Gorgo; David Wenham appears as Dilios; Andrew Tiernan plays Ephialtes; and Andrew Pleavin plays Daxos.
The cast also includes Hans Matheson as Themistokles’ closest friend and advisor, Aeskylos; Callan Mulvey and Jack O’Connell as father and son soldiers, Scyllias and Calisto; and Igal Naor as the Persian King Darius.
“300: Rise of the Empire” was directed by Noam Murro, from a screenplay by Zack Snyder & Kurt Johnstad, based on the graphic novel Xerxes, by Frank Miller.
At a press conference for the film, Stapleton and Green talked about playing these ancient Greek characters. Here is what they had to say:
Sullivan, how did you get the role and were you familiar with either the novel of the previous movie?
Sullivan Stapleton: Well, for me, they thought that I looked like the guy that played in the first one. Just kidding. I was part of the first one, and when I heard that they were doing a second one, I was very excited. Actually, in this one, there’s a little bit of the Xerxes backstory, so it was real cool to try to bring some humanity to this character, and I was really excited about it.
Eva, where does your character, Artemisia, rank in terms of the sheer fear she 
inflicts on other people compared to your other roles?
Eva Green: She’s so bad. I mean, it’s great because as an actress it’s hard to find strong roles. Most of the time, you’re offered the love interest or the boring girlfriend. And here, she is full on the mission. She doesn’t do anything half way. She’s an extreme character and completely obsessed with vengeance. I enjoy playing evil, but not one-dimensional evil characters. I like the ebbs and cracks in the armor. She’s ruthless and a badass.
Sullivan, the original cast went through a grueling training regimen before filming 300. Did you do that as well this time?
Sullivan: Nah. That’s why they cast me. I was already in shape [from “Strike Back.”] Of course, I did train. I went through hell. It was about ten weeks before we started shooting and they came out to Africa. I was working on another show, so I’d leave that set and go to the gym. It was an hour and a half of swords. That was the warm-up. It’s not fun. After that, it was an hour and a half with weights. There were a couple of exercises that these trainers had made up and you would think that that was the workout. But that was the warm-up. And so, whenever we’d go to work out, it just went on and on and on. And then, when we were shooting, I was hoping to maintain this. I found out that having to maintain this meant that while everyone else was at lunch, I was in the gym.
Eva, you mentioned you haven’t done an action movie before, but you did do Casino Royale where there are some pretty intense scenes like the sinking house. Does 300: ROE make all of that look easy?
Eva: Yeah. I mean, the scene in Casino Royale when she’s drowning and all that, I had a bit of training underwater, but it’s so different here. I had to train double swords for two months before the shoot. It was very empowering. It was liberating. I surprised myself.
What was your reaction to social media after that trailer premiered?
Sullivan: There was certainly a lot of interest on Facebook when it came out. My friends had found it and put it all over my page. So I returned the favor and there’s a post of myself in front of the blood drive, they called it. “I’m an Australian star,” I said, “who wants to go to the bloody beach.” That got quite a lot of hits.
Eva: I’m not into social media. I’m like from another century. Two friends of mine saw the trailer. Maybe this is a question for my friend next to me.
What about the cast? Did you guys connect with any of the old cast and talk to them about their experiences or get any tips?
Sullivan: Vincent Regan came on as a guest on the show that I do and he told me some stories. He said, “You’re going to get hurt in the gym.” Vincent was one of the biggest success stories of all the guys training. He was apparently quite a lot bigger and I used him as the yardstick as far as his development. And then, Dave Wenham, I heard some stories from him as well and then I got to work with him.
“300: Rise of the Empire” opens in theaters today.
The post Sullivan Stapleton & Eva Green talk ’300: Rise of an Empire’ also appeared on PCM Reviews.