Malin Akerman suits up and kicks ass in Watchmen

Born in Sweden and raised in Canada, former model Malin Akerman confesses she would be in sweats and running shoes instead of the bumblebee-hued latex bodysuit she wears in Watchmen if she had her way.

To the relief of fanboys worldwide, she doesn’t.

In Zack Snyder’s long-awaited, reportedly unfilmable, cinematic adaptation of the titular ’80s graphic novel, Akerman, 30, plays Silk Spectre II and spends a fair bit of screen time strapped into a skin-tight suit, thigh-high boots and a long, dark wig to portray the lone female Watchmen. So what did it feel like to superhero suit up?

“My reaction, as any other person’s reaction would be, is that [the costume] is just fierce,” Akerman told cineplex.com while in Toronto promoting the film. “Putting it on was…tricky. I didn’t really think of it for the fittings. I was just kind of like, ‘Alright, cool, you know, this will be interesting for the rest of the filming.’ And then you get it on and it looks amazing and you automatically feel like the character and it was really cool. But the novelty wore off after about a week or two,” she says with a laugh. “It was super uncomfortable…but it’s a high-class problem to have, really.”

Known to most audiences for her comedy work in films like 27 Dresses, The Heartbreak Kid and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (playing a demented hillbilly’s hot wife – you remember the scene), Akerman fell in love with the Watchmen script, and subsequently the book, and after impressing Snyder, joined cast mates Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley on set in Vancouver where a dystopian NYC was built from scratch.

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The story, set in 1985, takes place in an alternate America where Richard Nixon is celebrating his third term, the threat of nuclear war ticks ever closer on the Doomsday Clock and something called the Keene Act has outlawed costumed superheroes. After the murder of one of the now-disbanded Watchmen leads Rorschach, the only-still active member, on a hunt for answers, the old vigilante group soon reluctantly joins forces, this time with emotional baggage to spare.

Akermans’ Silk Spectre II (aka Laurie Jupiter) has recently hit a wall with her longtime lover Dr. Manhattan (a cobalt Billy Crudup), the only Watchmen who possesses actual superpowers, which have proven to severely alienate him from the human race, and from her.

“When she first met him, years and years back, he was more human at that point. And throughout the years, he becomes more and more detached from humanity, which is ultimately like if you’re in a relationship and you just start losing interest. You just start growing apart,” Akerman offers. “I just think that she wanted something that was real, even if it was flawed. Dr. Manhattan was trying to be too perfect but he just didn’t get it. He didn’t understand what [she] needed as a person anymore.”

Their lack of communication is explored to rather comedic effect in one scene where Dr. Manhattan, ever the selfless lover, creates duplicates of himself so he can be, well, attentive to Laurie in bed while simultaneously finishing work – a choice that ultimately leads to the relationship’s downfall.

That scene also nicely illustrates how Snyder and his team mix CGI and live action, with Crudup providing the heart, soul and face of the computer-generated god-on-earth, while visual effects take care of his Adonis physique. Akerman admitted that although Crudup’s hybrid look was a bit jarring at first, his acting chops made it easy.

“The first day, just getting used to how he looked…it was difficult. He’s basically in white pajamas with blue lights all over and dots on his face and a skull cap. So he looks nothing like the almighty blue man that he is supposed to be,” she says. “So we had a lot of giggles. But he’s such a good actor that once you start, and really get into it and get into your character, it doesn’t matter what’s in front of you, you just play off each other. Thank god he’s a phenomenal actor.”

Akerman also brings her A-game, both during vulnerable moments with Dr. Manhattan and her aging boozehound mother Silk Spectre, and in brutal fight scenes like the one that pitted her and Nite Owl II against the Knot Top gang. Guess who won?

“Training was gruesome. It was really harsh,” reveals Akerman about how she prepared for the physically demanding role. “I mean, two months before filming, I was training with an ex-Navy Seal – it was basically boot camp. And then a month out, we shipped off to Vancouver and started all the fight training and doing all the fight sequences and we did that throughout the whole film.”

The intense training regime was certainly put to good use as the film doesn’t hold back on any of the blood-splattered imagery splayed across the pages of the novel and maintains its dark, misanthropic outlook throughout. Akerman reveals that having a thorough, detailed foundation from which to build her character proved to be both a blessing and a curse.

“It was an interesting challenge. I’ve never had source material before [or] one that’s very visual where you see sort of the body language and there’s not a lot of room for improv, which sometimes helps you get into a character. It was definitely a challenge but also a lot of help. You do have this source material that gives you the history and the background and the psychology of these people. And it was basically doing [my] homework and figuring out who she was and digesting the words she was saying and understanding why she’s saying those words, so that once you get on set, you already understand it and it flows nicely.”

That’s probably the only time you’ll hear the word nice in relation to Snyder’s visceral look at costumed crime-fighters who are unapologetically flawed, plenty angry and inescapably human. Christopher Nolan’s take on the conflicted superhero, The Dark Knight – you may have heard of it – preferred to show our hero as a tortured soul with a painful interior life. But the Watchmen openly air their grievances on the city streets, chasing down the immoral and exacting their own brand of justice – and there's nothing nice about it.

“It looks so cool. It looks so rough,” Akerman says of the film. “I thought it was really important to see it with fans and non-fans, especially with family and friends. They all loved it – they were blown away. And the conclusion for all of them was, ‘We gotta go see it again.’ It really is a film where the second time you see it, it’s even better because you can actually enjoy it. The first time, there is so much information, you walk out and it’s like; ‘What just hit me?’ The second time you can get all the little themes running through it.”

Watchmen and Watchmen: The IMAX Experience open in Cineplex Theatres March 6.