Photo: Courtesy of Paramount.It's not exactly a new trend, but recently we've seen a smattering of Hollywood heavyweights helping out their younger friends. It started when Jennifer Lawrence urged Shailene Woodley to take on the Divergent franchise, famously saying "Don’t be stupid, don’t make a sex tape, don’t do drugs, don’t go to Whole Foods the day the movie opens, and you’ll be fine!" Now, Michael Fassbender is the latest A-lister to take on the role of mentor — he counseled newbie Jack Reynor when he signed up for the newest Transformers saga.
"Before I shot the film, I had a few beers with Michael Fassbender — he was working on a movie directed by a mutual friend at the time," Reynor recounted during a press day for Age of Extinction. "He told me it would be a challenge, but to remain grounded and keep my head down. That was a good thing to hear, because a lot of people will tell you the positives about doing a movie, but nobody tells you how hard it is, too."
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Reynor, an Irish actor most recognizable for his part in Vince Vaughn's Delivery Man, is trying to heed Fassbender's advice as buzz begins to build around the latest Transformers installment. The film picks up four years after Dark Side of the Moon as the world becomes aware of the autobot invasion, and it's promising to be the biggest sequel yet. A darker plot and a massive budget means the stakes are raised, making things that much more nerve-racking for 22-year-old Reynor and his costars Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz. But, it wasn't just the publicity Reynor needed to worry about, it was the movie's stunt work.
"The hardest part of filming was definitely the stunts — the craziest being the massive explosion that's shown in the trailer," said Reynor. "That was a scene we didn't know we were doing until about five minutes before we shot it, and we had four seconds to run from one point to another before everything around us blows up."
The cast survived without any major scars, and Reynor insists that the movie's shock value can't be emphasized enough — in fact, his thoughts on being in the flick remain the same today as day one of shooting: "Holy shit, this is crazy."