Taron Egerton, Colin Firth and Mark Strong team up with the Statesman in the superspy
sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and today I'm going to reveal some behind-the-scenes
facts, easter eggs and on-set secrets about the second Kingsman movie.
I'm also kicking off a new giveaway.
So, for a chance to win this fantastic Kingsman merchandise, make sure you're subscribed to
my channel and leave a comment about the movie below.
To bring to life the villainous character of Poppy Adams, who's head of the Golden Circle
criminal organisation, actress Julianne Moore and director Matthew Vaughn took inspiration
from some intriguing places, including the 1978 Superman movie.
Julianne Moore especially loved the way Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor and Valerie Perrine's
Miss Teschmacher spoke to each other like regular people despite all their supervillainy,
and decided to channel that feeling for her performance as Poppy.
As for the design of Poppyland, which is Poppy's Americana-inspired lair set in an ancient
ruin in Southeast Asia, Matthew Vaughn went for a full-on Martha Stewart vibe mixed with
Vegas and Disneyland, because, as Vaughn says, Poppy is "America's sweetheart gone very wrong".
Speaking of Poppyland, when actor Keith Allen, who plays one of Poppy's minions in the movie,
found out that the set for Poppy's diner was going to be thrown away once filming was finished,
he decided to rescue it.
So, with the producers' permission, Allen had the set loaded on to a truck and transported
to Stroud in Gloucestershire, where much of it now features in an American-style diner
run by his wife.
Elton John certainly has some memorable scenes in The Golden Circle; however, he actually
turned down a part in the first Kingsman movie that would have shown him throwing tantrums
and getting in a big fight.
In fact, the original script for Kingsman: The Secret Service included a whole series
of cameos by celebrities who were going to show up when they were abducted by Samuel
L Jackson's villain Valentine.
But the idea of celebrities actually appearing in the film as themselves was scrapped as
director Matthew Vaughn was turned down by the celebrities he approached!
By the way, look out for various Elton John easter eggs during the movie, including nods
to his songs and albums on the marquee at Poppy's theatre, and Poppy's robo-dogs are
even named Bennie and Jet, after John's hit song Bennie and the Jets.
Plus, Elton John's cameo in the sequel also includes an innuendo-laden call-back to a
controversial joke from the first Kingsman movie.
On the subject of that divisive gag at the end of The Secret Service, Matthew Vaughn
and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman have included an equally contentious moment in the sequel,
which shows Eggsy planting a tracking device on a character named Clara played by Poppy
Delevingne, sister of Valerian star Cara Delevingne.
The scene features an intimate moment that Taron Egerton told Screen Rant he was not
comfortable with, so instead of the hand which appears in that shot being Egerton's, it's
actually the hand of Poppy Delevingne's real-life husband, James Cook.
Apparently, Matthew Vaughn makes a particular effort to include such controversy-courting
moments in his movies.
Speaking to Total Film, he stated that, 'It was [Stanley] Kubrick who said you need 5
water-cooler moments, and then you've got a hit film.
So I always try to put 8 in to make sure that at least 5 happen!'
"For example, the finger scene, in this one, I know it's gonna ... People are going to
talk about it ... and ... there'll be a divided opinion, but there'll be an opinion."
By the way, I mentioned earlier the controversial ending of the first Kingsman film, well, Vaughn
has confessed to Deadline.com that he made the first cut of that scene a lot more graphic
on purpose as he was deliberately trying to wind up Emma Watts, 20th-Century Fox's President
of Production, although he also admitted he completely failed in his efforts to do this.
Spending days tied to a mechanical bull to film a scene as secret agent Whiskey was not
actor Pedro Pascal's idea of a good time, especially as he's had tons of back problems
since playing Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones.
But after four days in the saddle, at least the scene was in the can, or so Pascal thought,
that is, until he got a phone call from Matthew Vaughn, months after the movie wrapped, dropping
the bombshell that he'd cut the entire mechanical bull scene from the movie!
While Colin Firth's Kingsman character Harry Hart was inspired by British actor David Niven
and Michael Caine's fictional spy Harry Palmer in movies such as The Ipcress Files, Pedro
Pascal's character Agent Whiskey, who's part of the Statesman American intelligence agency,
is based on a mix of the Marlboro Man and actors James Coburn and Burt Reynolds.
And to bring the Statesman leader Champagne, aka Champ, to life, Jeff Bridges drew on memories
of his actor-father Lloyd Bridges as well as his previous cowboy roles including Wild
Bill Hickok.
When it came to the character of Eggsy though, it was Luke Skywalker's journey over the course
of the original Star Wars trilogy that really struck a chord with Matthew Vaughn and he
kept that in mind when he was outlining Eggsy's journey in the Golden Circle.
And as The Golden Circle is the first sequel Vaughn has directed, he revisited some of
his favourite cinematic sequels such as The Godfather: Part II, Aliens, and The Empire
Strikes Back for inspiration.
If you think that punch in the face Charlie gives Eggsy during their brawl looked pretty
painful, that's because it was!
Ed Holcroft, who plays rejected-Kingsman-applicant-turned-villain Charlie, misjudged the angle and ended up
smashing his friend Kingsman star Taron Egerton straight in the face, with the full force
of his thump landing right on Egerton's nose.
Obviously, Egerton was pretty annoyed at the time, but the filmmakers thought it looked
so good they decided to use that take in the final movie!
And that wasn't Egerton's only on-set injury while filming the Kingsman sequel.
During a break between takes, he was sat on top of a taxi they were using for a stunt
sequence when a member of the crew walked past and slammed the cab door shut, not realising
that Egerton's hand was in the way!
Ouch!
The action scene featuring that taxi cab includes a nod to the 1977 movie The Spy Who Loved
Me which stars Roger Moore as James Bond.
In that film, Bond escapes the baddies by putting his Lotus Esprit car into submersible
mode and going underwater.
Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn loved that scene and wanted to recreate the moment but
in a much more attainable car for people watching in the audience, hence the taxi cab.
And talking of Bond, did you notice the 'bottled in Bond' mark on the Statesman liquor that
Merlin and Eggsy find in the vault?
'Bottled in Bond' is a term used in the American drinks industry that means the whisky has
been made to a certain standard, but coincidentally it's also a nice wink to the fact that the
Kingsman movies owe a great debt to the Bond films.
Now, what did you think of Kingsman: The Golden Circle?
How did it compare to the first film?
And what were your best and worst moments?
Let me know in the comments below and also don't forget to subscribe for your chance
to win some awesome Kingsman merch.
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you catch it!
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