Knights of Badassdom Press Conference

It's the Kingdom of Broken Asses in the translation from Chinese, and it is set to be one heck of a nerdgasm. The cast alone, Peter Dinklage (Game of thrones), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Summer Glau (Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Steve Zahn (Joy Ride), Jimmi Simpson (Date Night) and Danny Pudi ( Community), just to name a few bring epicness and a ton of geek cred with their sheer screen presence.

Director Joe Lynch brought a handful of his phenomenal cast to comic con to give fans a peak, and share a little about his adventures in larping. Although Steve Zahn was missing from comic con, the other cast members mentioned above as well as Michael Gladis and Margarita Levieva were more than happy to talk about the live action role playing, or larping, horror comedy flick inspiration, and of course comic con.

Joe Lynch touched on the fan response, it being his first comic con, where he was a participant and not a fanboy, saying “It was an absolute dream come true. I was always the guy in the back, or the one waiting for one of these guys to come through. It was amazing (being in Hall H). A little freighting cause it keeps going back since the lights only light the first couple of rows of people, and it was a sea of people.”

And those people were very excited, especially with the footage which quickly showed that this movie isn’t you’re normal run of the mill larping movie. “We were able to make a film about larping but not about larping at the same time. Really to me, it’s about a lot of us, its people who’ve come to a crossroads in life, where you are in life and how do you kind of, level up. The thing I loved about the script is it isn’t about nubile young twenty somethings, the people were slightly older, and trying to figure out what was their purpose in life, and you can use something like larping, paintballing or anything to escape that reality and the fact that it was done in a way that used larping as such a thing was brilliant.”

Of course you can’t have a panel with Ryan Kwanten and not ask about True Blood. He was asked about both suiting up as a larper and being a werepanther. And in his sexy Australian accent he touched on both. About Larping: “Spoiler alert. The character, Joe, finds it very much amusing until he’s forced to take it seriously. Larping is very much that kind of thing. Seriously you can’t help but get swept up in that emotion of larping.” And True Blood: “Jason is going through a tough time with the fact that he doesn’t have any superhero powers. I think its almost comical in the fact that he doesn’t considering that everyone else on the show does, and the fact that he can’t is kinda funny.”

The entire cast stressed the fact that although the film does involve larping, its about more. Joe Lynch said it best, "You know what a good story is a good story no matter where you put it. You can put it in medieval times, you can put it in space. If it’s a good story, and you care about the characters, that was really the most important thing for us right off the bat." 

And one of the big inspirations was Shaun of the Dead.  "The reason why I love that film so much is that you care about the characters, and when people start dying you go holy shit, shit got real and if you care about those characters then that’s all that matters.  So that was so important for us, to make a good story about people who sort of find who they are and who just so happen that they’re running around with foam swords and stuff."

While Joe did promise some hot monster action, he does make reference to horror movies such as The Thing where the monster is seen for less than five minutes of total screen time, but was done in such a way that it still left a lasting impact. But horror fans don't fear, there is plenty of succubus action, body parts and blood. In fact, the sticky blood was brought up more than once, seemingly a problem for everyone except Ryan.

Ryan: "The blood itself is sort of like a syrupy sugary glucose type concoction , and I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth, so I didn’t mind it."

Joe Lynch: "When we’d cut in between takes we’d see Ryan just by the buckets, drinking."

Ryan:" I’m very easily pleased."

The cast was also asked how they would survive a real medieval setting. The answers ranged from Margarita eating everyone, Jimmi ending up being owned by Peter Dinklage, while Peter succumbed to something, anything so long as he could use the word succumbed and Ryan taking the role of king. All I can say is Hail to the King. Knights of Badassdom rides into a theaters Spring of 2012.

About Knights of Badassdom: In this humorous fantasy adventure from IndieVest Pictures, Joe (Ryan Kwanten) is a heavy metal rocker who’s just gone through a painful breakup with his girlfriend, Beth (Margarita Levieva). His concerned roommates (Steve Zahn, Peter Dinklage) kidnap him to their LARP (Live Action Role Playing) gathering, where he enters a realm of fantasy escapism in which pretend knights, elves, and barbarians clash with foam weaponry on a mock battlefield. When Joe’s “sorcerer” roommate (Zahn) inadvertently summons a deadly succubus that takes Beth’s seductive form, bloody reality crashes down upon their fantasy world. Once LARPers start to turn up dead, the make-believe wizards and warriors must become the real life heroes they have been pretending to be in order to conquer the evil that has been unleashed.

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