Calgary actor wrangles robots in Pacific Rim: Uprising
Calgary actor deals with giant monsters and Russian accent in Pacific Rim: Uprising, writes
Believe it or not, there are practical ways an actor can prepare for playing a futuristic Russian teenager who co-pilots giant robots against rampaging sea monsters.
Calgary-raised actor Levi Meaden prepared quite extensively for Pacific Rim: Uprising. He plays Ilya, one of the young cadets trained as a “Jaegar” pilot to protect the world from the seadwelling Kaiju that wreaked havoc on Earth 10 years earlier.
Meaden was flown down a few weeks early to Australia to do some basic training with the army. He did cardio and weightlifting and was put on a strict diet.
But it was also the first time he had to adopt an accent. So, to get those Russian nuances, he re-watched David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, studied Russian newscasts and worked for an hour a day with a dialect coach.
Still, he wasn’t satisfied. So Meaden got a little more cerebral.
“I’m a huge fan of Crime and Punishment and a lot of Dostoevsky,” says Meaden, in an interview from his home in Los Angeles. “I ended up reading Dostoevsky on the side, kind of as a way to get into the mindset of Russia. I don’t know much about modern Russia, but that’s a good start.”
Of course, Pacific Rim: Uprising, which opens Friday, doesn’t have much to do with modern Russia. It’s the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 original, which introduced the world to the colossal sea creatures that emerged out of an interdimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Ten years later, an international team of brave cadets have been trained to pilot Jaegers and are poised to defend the Earth should the monsters reappear. Spoiler alert: They do, and they are bigger and badder than ever. But things are complicated this time around when a new threat emerges in the form of a rogue Jaeger.
“There’s paranoid sci-fi thriller inside of it,” Meaden says. “It’s a lot different world than the first one. They are prepared for the attacks but they are not sure when it’s going to come or if it’s going to come because it’s been so long. Then, all of sudden, it seems like this rogue faction has taken over and we don’t know who the bad guy is, who we are fighting. I think it reflects a lot of what we see in our society right now.”
While he did have a small part in War for the Planet of the Apes, Meaden’s role in Pacific Rim: Uprising may be the one that propels him to another stratosphere in Hollywood; not that he’s really starved for fame at this point. But more on that later.
In Pacific Rim, he joins an international cast of young performers, led by new Star Wars star John Boyega and second-generation actor Scott Eastwood. Boyega plays Jake Pentecost, the rebellious son of one of the heroes of the first film played by Idris Elba. Alongside his estranged sister Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), young Pentecost leads the new force to battle the Kaiju and whatever other nefarious forces may be behind the new mayhem.
Meaden’s Ilya is described as having “a dry sense of humour and a seething intensity.” He occasionally may second-guess his abilities, but he is also both extremely competitive and loyal to his fellow cadets.
While Meaden can fall back on his Dostoevsky to help unravel these complex Russian character traits, it should be said that his character is also at the centre of a considerable amount of action. So the minor military training, cardio and weightlifting also came in handy.
“I’m a huge action movie fan, always have been,” he says. “I grew up in Calgary watching Die Hard, Aliens, Star Wars films — so I guess I’ve always loved those types of movies. Doing action movies, you feel like you are an action star. You get to run around, they have giant sets, there’s stuff blowing up. You’re fighting, shooting. It’s basically 10-year-old me being super excited because it’s everything I ever watched and everything I ever escaped to.”
Born in Saskatoon, Meaden was raised in Calgary, attending William Aberhart High School before deciding to study at the Prague Centre for Film Education in the Czech Republic. Back in Canada, he landed small roles in Vancouver-shot series such as The 100 and Almost Human before making his mark in the fourth and final season of the mystery-thriller series The Killing, playing a cadet named A.J. Fielding.
Like Ilya, Fielding was also a militarized teen with “seething intensity,” albeit one with some dark secrets. Later, in the short-lived Syfy series Aftermath, Meaden played an ass-kicking teen who helps his family fight supernatural beings during an apocalypse.
In the trippy, Calgary-shot In-Control, he played one of a group of university students who discover a device to take control of other people and temporarily see the world through their eyes.
Despite his ongoing penchant for playing hotheaded teenagers, Meaden is 30. He says he hopes to find a balance for the rest of his career, mixing big-budget fare with character roles. He recently played a criminal in Breaking In, a homeinvasion thriller opposite Gabrielle Union. He is also set to play a hemophiliac in Unspeakable, a CBC miniseries about the tainted blood scandal of the 1980s that infected thousands of Canadians with HIV and hepatitis C.
It’s the sort of career strategy that may have provided a slow-and-steady climb were it not for one significant factor in his life that has given him plenty, and occasionally unwanted, attention.
The actor has been dating Modern Family star Ariel Winter since the end of 2016 and they have been tabloid fodder since.
According to recent breathless reports, mostly found on the “U.S. Showbiz” section of Dailymail. com, the couple has recently been photographed eating Italian food in Beverly Hills, walking outside a gym in Los Angeles and “keeping it casual” while buying pet supplies in Studio City. The latter activity was likely in service of the baby bunny Meaden bought Winter for her 20th birthday, which caused quite a stir in the tabloids a few months back.
“It’s been interesting,” says Meaden slowly, in a tone that suggests he is being heroically diplomatic about the whole matter.
“I think everybody thinks it’s a lot more fun than it is. You want to just go to the grocery store and you can’t just go to the grocery store without something popping up for some reason. They love getting us grocery shopping or doing the most mundane activity.
“I certainly opt to stay home a lot more than I used to. You’re hounded, you’re followed. It can ruin a day. Photographers can be rude sometimes and it can be a downer if they don’t want to leave. It would be easier without it, I think. But it’s just where we’re at. I know it’s not forever, either, so we’ll just ride it out and hopefully get back to living our more quiet lives.”
Pacific Rim: Uprising opens Friday.